Sunday, June 17, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Gaming Chips

Poker prize pool prompts probe

Binion's Horseshoe owner Becky Behnen's handling of a $549,285 portion of the World Series of Poker's $18.3 million prize pool continues to interest the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

Control board Chairman Dennis Neilander said Wednesday the board is still investigating the Horseshoe's handling of the money, 3 percent of the prize pool for the World Series' 26 events, which the property advertised would go to "tournament personnel."

The remaining 97 percent were split by the winner and top finishers in each event.

The plan to subtract 3 percent of the prize pool followed the practice of competing poker tournaments of withholding a portion of the prize pool to make tournament workers less reliant on volatile tip income.

In past World Series, dealers and tournament bosses earned tips alone. Dealers collected 65 percent of the total tips, called the "toke pool." The bosses split the remaining 35 percent.

This year, the tournament's dealers apparently received about half of the $549,285, but 30 tournament managers and floor supervisors received only $26,000, about 10 percent of the amount they expected to receive.

Control board agents interviewed former Horseshoe poker room manager Cathi Wood for 1 1/2 hours Tuesday. The interview focused on the withholding, she said.

Wood said she was fired early this month for disagreeing with Behnen about the allocation of the 3 percent.

Behnen declined to answer questions about the matter.

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TRIVIA TIME: Nevada casinos win more money on blackjack, $1.2 billion, than any other table game. Which table games generate the second-and third-most casino revenue?

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HORSE SENSE: Writer William Grimes profiled Las Vegas horseplayer Ernest Dahlman, one of the nation's biggest horse race bettors, in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on June 3.

Dahlman moved to Las Vegas in the mid '90s and now bets at the Suncoast. Dahlman told Grimes that he earns about $700,000 before taxes in a good year.

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TRIVIA ANSWER: State casinos won $496.8 million from baccarat bettors during the 12 months ending April 30, according to Nevada Gaming Control Board figures. Craps players lost $476.3 million during the same period.

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QUOTABLE: "It is somewhere between ironic and a travesty that Nevada sets the standard for almost everything in the casino industry, from operations and architecture to regulation, yet spends nothing on problem gambling," -- Dr. Rob Hunter, director of Las Vegas' Problem Gambling Consultants, after the state Legislature failed to pass a bill funding $250,000 of problem gambling treatment.

Gaming Chips is compiled by the staff of lasvegas.com Gaming Wire.