Being Oscar (36 page)

I told the unions that we had to make cuts. If the unions were willing to make concessions—we were looking for something like an eight percent cut in wages and/or benefits—then I would guarantee that there would be no layoffs. This wasn’t a complicated issue, and I figured the union membership would go along. You take a cut to save your brother and sister union members’ jobs.

It’s about sacrifice, another concept that seems to have gotten lost in the world of politics and government today. The union rejected my offer. I called them “selfish” and they called me a bully. I said I intended to fire everyone and then rehire based on the economic realities we were facing. This created panic, not only with the workers, but with the city attorney, who told me if I did that we’d spend the next twenty years fighting all the lawsuits that would be filed and that would bankrupt the city.

So I backed off, not because I thought I was wrong, but because the city attorney’s legal position may have had some merit. The only other option was layoffs, and I said that’s what we would have to do. The economy, the numbers, just didn’t add up. There had to be some cuts. The workers understood this, and they knew I meant business.

Eventually the union came to the table, and we worked out a deal that saved everyone’s job. But the entire experience reinforced my thoughts about organized labor. Union leaders don’t really represent workers anymore, they just use them as leverage. They’re like politicians; their only goal is to stay in office. They care more about their salaries and benefits than they do about the wages and jobs of their members.

You would think someone in a leadership role in organized labor would wake up and address that problem before it’s too late. Look around: governors in Wisconsin and New Jersey have developed huge followings in part by bashing unions as unreasonable and unrealistic. It’s a message that resonates with taxpayers, particularly taxpayers who have lost their jobs or had their wages cut. That’s reality, and elected officials and union leaders need to recognize it.

I
accomplished a lot of the things I set out to do when I became mayor, but one of the things I wasn’t able to get was a professional sports team. It’s a battle that I’m still fighting.

If Las Vegas is going to be a world-class city, and I think it should be, then we need a professional team. It’s not about helping the economy. There’s no guarantee that a team will attract more visitors, generate more tourist dollars, create jobs and employment. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. But what a team will do is add to our sense of identity, and that can’t be measured in dollars. It’s an intangible, but one that I’m willing to fight for.

As I’ve said before, I’m a degenerate gambler. I have been all my life. I’ll bet on anything, anytime, anywhere. I grew up playing sports and following sports, so I guess it was natural that I liked to bet on sports. I don’t see anything wrong with it. I’m not influencing the outcome of a game, and I understand that over the long haul, I’m not going to win. That’s the bottom line. I know that going in, but I still love to bet. Maybe I’ll figure out a winning system; it’s every gambler’s hope.

It’s amazing when you look at some of the professional odds makers and bettors I’ve represented: guys like Bob Martin and Frank Rosenthal and Billy Walters. They were genius-like in their ability to set a line. That’s what it’s all about. The bookie lives on that line, whether he’s a guy working a bar in Chicago, a school yard in Philadelphia, or behind the counter at one of the sports books in the casinos here in Las Vegas. He’s going to make $10 on every $100 bet if the line is set right and the bets are balanced. Out of balance is a different story, but on most days he’s going to win more than he’s going to lose. I should know; I’ve been on the other end enough times. Even still, it’s in my blood.

I played poker all through college, and I was lucky that Carolyn liked to play, too. During a break while I was in law school, we went down to Atlantic City. I was clerking in the district attorney’s office at the time, and one of the assistant district attorneys invited us down for a weekend. His family had a house there. There were several couples; most of the guys were lawyers in the office, and I was excited to have been invited. We started playing poker one night and I made up this stupid rule that only a winner could call the night over.

Carolyn went to bed. We kept playing and I kept losing. It got to the point where I knew I wouldn’t have the money to pay the others when it came time to cash out. Luckily Carolyn came back down in her robe and pajamas, saw what a schmuck I was, and got back in the game. She got us even before the night ended.

But there’s a difference between how I gamble and what a gambling addict goes through. I’m not “sick”; I don’t risk the kind of money that would hurt my family or destroy my life.

This gambling compulsion—and how it can destroy you—was made clear to me shortly after a phone call I got one time from Robin Moore, the bestselling author. I had read several of his books,
The Green Berets, The French Connection, The Happy
Hooker
. He said he was working on a new book about a fellow named Joe Henry Hodges, a brilliant guy who ruined his life gambling. Hodges was well educated, had a lovely wife and two wonderful children, and at one time was the city attorney of Irving, Texas. But he was a compulsive gambler.

He’d say to his wife, “I’m going down to the Piggly Wiggly to buy a carton of milk” and disappear for three days on a gambling bender. He risked and lost it all; he had bad checks all over the Southwest. He got arrested by the FBI at LaGuardia Airport in New York and was brought back to Las Vegas to face charges that could have resulted in a long prison sentence.

Robin Moore asked me to represent Hodges, and I got him released on $100,000 bail. Moore managed to raise the money. Working on that case, I found out how really sick a compulsive gambler is. I had a medical expert testify on Hodges’ behalf. We had to fight several cases, including one in Houston where the prosecutor wanted to send him to jail for life.

Basically my medical expert said that while Hodges realized what he was doing was wrong, he rationalized his actions and came to believe they were acceptable. The doctor used a lot of medical terms and jargon, but the thing I remember best was his comparison to sex. He said a compulsive gambler is like an erect penis during sex—you just can’t stop it.

I was able to keep Hodges out of jail, but he lost everything: his wife, his family, his home, and his friends. You might think he had learned his lesson, but I’ll bet against that.

Not everyone who bets is like Hodges. A lot of people are like me; they like to bet, and they do it within their means. That desire has created a multi-million dollar industry.

Look at the statistics. The Super Bowl is a great example. The amount of money bet on that one game is staggering. In Nevada, where’s it’s legal, casinos take about $90 million in action.
Internet gambling sites, according to some studies, do about $2 billion more. And the illegal bookies pull in about $3 billion. That’s more than $5 billion bet on one game.

The thing that the do-gooders fail to acknowledge is that it’s in everyone’s interest to keep that game and all games on the up-and-up. That’s why I have a problem with the heads of most of the professional sports leagues who won’t even consider allowing a franchise in Las Vegas. Betting is a business, and it only functions when the customers think they have a fair shot. We have to build a world-class arena and then take our shot.

I think I’ve already laid the groundwork. One of the first things I did after I was elected was to go back to New York and meet with the commissioners of the NHL and the NBA.

Gary Bettman was very pleasant, and said as far as he was concerned, Las Vegas would be a great site, but the NHL wasn’t expanding and none of the franchises were interested in relocating. I took him at his word. I believe he meant what he said. To me, the most important part of what he said was that he thought Las Vegas would be great. Unlike the commissioners of the other sports, he didn’t say no. So getting a professional hockey team was, however remote, a possibility.

David Stern with the NBA was another story. I always had a lot of respect for him as a commissioner. But when I went to his office, it was like I was the enemy. And his position was “over my dead body” would the NBA ever put a team in Las Vegas.

“I’m never going to allow a franchise in a city where bets are made,” he said. “As long as I’m commissioner, there’s no way in the world that’s going to happen.”

I thought he was ridiculous for saying that. Talk to anyone in the business—and I’ve represented more than my share of those types of “businessmen”—and it’s obvious there are bets taken in every city where the NBA has a franchise. The only difference between those cities and Las Vegas is that the bets outside of Vegas
are taken illegally. I’ll wager that there were more bets taken in Madison Square Garden—at least when the Knicks were good—than all the books in Las Vegas.

Has it hurt the integrity of the game? I think the brand of basketball, the school yard, individual style of play, has hurt the game of professional basketball more than any bookie taking a bet. But that’s just my view as a fan of the game.

Lebron James and Kobe Bryant may be super talents, but I’ll take Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson and the style of the game they played over what you see today. Give me Bob Cousy over Allen Iverson. You want Shaquille O’Neal? Fine, I’ll take Bill Russell.

But those weren’t the kinds of things Stern and I talked about. This was before the problem with Tim Donaghy, the NBA referee who was accused of influencing the outcome of games to win bets. That was an in-house NBA problem. How’s that for integrity?

I told Stern that his position was draconian and that it made no sense. I argued that the Las Vegas race and sports books have more supervision than any other venue where bets are legal, and that there has never been an incident of cheating. He didn’t want to hear it. When I left his office, I have to say I wasn’t surprised by his reaction. But I was demoralized anyway because he didn’t offer any hope. He was adamant; no way.

But I kept pushing for us to build a first-class arena, and the word started to spread that Las Vegas was going to get an NBA franchise.

Stern called me on the phone. “Didn’t you hear what I said?” he asked. “Under no circumstances are you going to get a franchise.”

But I noticed something in his voice. I could almost hear a smile over the phone. And I knew that some other people in his office were not as adamant, so I thought we might have a shot.

Around that time our Convention Authority got involved in a sponsorship deal with the NBA over “NBA Euro.” This was a plan to create interest on an international level for NBA basketball. And as the chairman of the Convention Authority, I got to go on a trip with Stern and some other NBA officials. We visited three cities: Rome, Barcelona, and Paris. Not a bad junket, as far as junkets go. I love those cities, but we did the trip in five days—five brutal days. We were constantly moving.

The stop in Rome was the greatest. It’s amazing what you can do in one day. Rossi Ralenkotter, the president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and a very good guy, led the entourage to the Vatican. I had been there before, so I passed. I decided it would be a chance to get in some shopping. I called Carolyn at home and asked if there was anything special I could treat her to while I was in the Eternal City.

Without missing a beat, she described a purse made by Prada. I left the hotel and ventured onto the streets of Rome in search of the Prada bag. I had taken Latin in school, but other than “amo, amas, amat,” I didn’t remember very much.

I managed to ask some folks along the way where the Prada shop was, and after several twists and turns, I found myself at the top of the Spanish Steps, one of the truly glorious spots in the city. Prada was on the piazza at the bottom of the steps. The 138 steps descend in stages, but there are no railings. I wear glasses with ground-in bifocals, and I have a devil of a time going down stairs, especially when there are no railings. But being the loving husband that I am, I soldiered on and began my descent.

It’s a tradition in Rome for young people to gather at the Spanish Steps, and thankfully they were sitting all over the place. So as I began to walk down, I reached out and touched their heads for balance. One-hundred and thirty-eight heads; that’s how I got down these famous steps.

When I got to the Prada store in the piazza, I was able to describe the bag. They had it in stock and I bought it. I just knew that when I got home to Las Vegas and told Carolyn of my heroic flight down the Spanish Steps in order to make the purchase, she would love me more than ever.