Sunday, November 10, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NEVADAN AT WORK: DAVE SCHWARTZ, Coordinator of the Gaming Studies Research Center, University Libraries

University researcher serves as guide through gambling's documented past

High in the stainless steel tower that is the Lied Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas lies the Gaming Studies Research Center.

No remote ivory tower this. It's the best place in the world for digging into the history of the gambling industry that defines Las Vegas.

Visitors may sometimes find UNLV professor and casino industry expert Bill Thompson doing his research at the tables in the special collections reading room.

"People often ask me why I study gaming. I tell them if you were a professor in Siberia, you'd study polar bears. In Las Vegas, we study casinos and (the center) is a fantastic place to do it," he said. The author of seven books on gambling, Thompson said the center "has the best collections on gaming in the world."

Dave Schwartz, a mild-mannered academic from New Jersey, bears primary responsibility for the collections, in effect the industry archives recording the heart and soul of Las Vegas' driving dream.

"We serve as a repository for the gaming and commercial casino industries. We try to cover the entire spectrum, all kinds of gaming, but we focus more on commercial casinos because there is more information available," he said.

The public may access most of the information as they might access the records of a public official, Schwartz said.

"I do the same thing with casino companies, facilitate the process and make the records accessible," he said. "Obviously, because it's a pretty sensitive industry as far as information goes, I wouldn't expect to get all of Glen Schaeffer's records or another executives' on a real-time basis, but we do receive a lot of documents and things from casinos."

It's also possible to negotiate a seal on records and oral histories so they are not opened to the public for a period of time and thus are allowed to become less sensitive.

"We just signed signed a master agreement with Harrah's Entertainment to get their corporate archives here. We have also been receiving (records) through (spokesman) Alan Feldman from MGM Grand," he said.

The center has the Binion Horseshoe collection and Schwartz has put together a retrospective on the World Series of Poker.

"It's up on the Web site in the virtual museum, a history of the World Series of Poker that's held every year at the Horseshoe and it also includes a history of the Horseshoe," he said. "We have excerpts from the oral history interview that Benny Binion did in 1973 and photo galleries of Binion and the Horseshoe

"It's all online. If somebody is interested in the history, they can find it online. Then if people are really interested in doing research, they can come in to look at the collection itself," he said.

As a practical matter, Schwartz makes good use of the Internet, displaying old photographs that could be damaged by exposure to air and light, and making good use of the limited space in the special collections area.

Question: Why is the industry so sensitive?

Answer: In a sense, every business is. If I'm in real estate, I wouldn't want to give out all my leads. I wouldn't want to give out the names of all the high rollers. It's proprietary information, and we have to respect that.

Any how, I'm not that interested in looking at specific individuals. I'm looking at information as a historian. It's less interesting to me to know someone has a $20 million line of credit at Caesars Palace than it is to know there is a Caesars Palace and to document that casino's operation.

People in the industry aren't going to be willing to share player information. Still, we can have agreements to seal information if need be and that's something I probably will explore as I develop relationships with different companies. But the bottom line is that you have to concentrate on collecting what you can.

Question: Where do you want to take the collections from here?

Answer: I'd like to have working relationships with every major casino company in the United States. We've made a great start here with the Harrah's agreement and the work we're doing with MGM Mirage. I'd like to extend that just as far as we can.

I'm also working on a distinguished speakers series. That would have a person coming in and giving a talk, whether a professor who studies the industry, a regulator of an operator, and talk about current issues. That helps bring public attention to the center and show how we serve as a clearing house for information.

And I'm interested in doing more records management outreach with gaming company operators and doing oral history interviews with people who have been in the industry and people who have lived and worked in the Las Vegas area.

Question: What brought you to Las Vegas?

Answer: This job. I was interested in gaming because I'm from Atlantic City and I grew up around the industry. I always had an interest in history academically so I figured it'd be a natural step academically to study the gaming industry. I think I'm the right person for this job because I don't have any research agendas.

Question: Why library work?

Answer: To do the kind of research I want to do, this is ideal because I have access to the biggest and best collection on gaming in the world.

Question: What do you like most about your job?

Answer: I like being able to work with the industry without being in the industry. I get to follow the industry closely and to work with the best people in it.

Question: What's your toughest challenge?

Answer: Keeping on top of all the information has been very tough. Negotiating with the companies has not been difficult, but getting on their radar is hard. It's a very fast-paced business and there are a lot of pressing things that have to be done each day. Although people realize it's important to preserve the history of the industry, it's hard for them to make sacrifices each day to do that.

Question: What's been your most surprising discovery?

Answer: How big bingo is because it gets about no attention in the media or industry analyses, but it's absolutely huge. There are 1.6 billion visits a year to bingo games nationally including churches. I see this center as a place that can study this. I can't see any other institution that's going to want to collect information on bingo and for people who want to study it.

Question: What else?

Answer: We also have collections on organized crime, prostitution. And from there it grades off into other special collections that document the history and culture of Southern Nevada. We've got books on prostitution and on organized crime, both going back to the 19th century. Actually, the Taxe Collection has a lot of rare and old books on gambling going back to the 17th century.

Question: What about art and graphics?

Answer: That's definitely part of it. Most of what you see in here are architectural renderings. They're an important part of it because you it's a way of preserving something of the buildings. It's important to have the architectural plans and the visuals for them.

Question: What can the public find at the center?

Answer: Anybody who's interested in any level of information about the casino industry is going to find something. A lot of what I do now is through the Web site, gaming.unlv.edu, because traditionally maybe 20 years ago what we'd do here is just receive government documents and make them available. Today, because so much information is electronic, I'm providing electronic access as well.

One of the things we can do as a library is help people access information electronically and access electronic information. Just another tool to help people get information.

Our Web site has a few sections. First research, work that's been done. If someone wants to look at an academic article, they can look it up. In the research section, I'm trying to help people find the information they need quickly.

In the resources section, I just provide raw data. links to statistics and the like. It can be pretty much anything and everything.

Then, we have gaming headlines. I use a Web feed for everything in that material, and we also have a media guide.

Question: Who uses the center?

Answer: It's a very diverse group of people because you can have an intern doing a marketing project come in from a casino and you can have somebody coming in to study the gambling system books we have trying to beat the casinos. That's one of the things I like about it here. Something for everybody. And it helps us know we're useful.