Tourism and Gaming Working Group

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Good. Yeah. Thank you. Welcome, everybody, to the Tourism and Gaming Working Group. We have our co chair, Lynn DeCoite, and also myself as the co chair. Today is Thursday, February 19, 2026. It's 4:00pm 4:02. We're here at Conference Room 430 at the State Capitol. And thank you for being here. This is a.

There's no public testimony will be accepted at this time, so we're gonna start at the top of our agenda. And you don't mind, can we introduce all our Members? I'll start off with our left and then go around. Okay.

Jimmy Tokioka, Director of DBEDT.

Brandon Maka'Awa'Awa Vice President, Nation of Hawaii.

Art Tolentino, representing unions.

Gary Suganuma for Department of Taxation.

Michelle Puu, Department of the Attorney General.

At UNLV.

I'm Bo Bernhard with the William Harrah College of Hospitality at UNLV.

Paul Anderson, Boyd Gaming.

Staford Carr, Aloha Halawa District Partners.

Sean Quinlan, House Majority Leader.

Senator Lynn DeCoite.

And then those in Zoom.

Hi. Anthony Marnell III with Marnell Gaming.

I'm with NSAID

Jim Dillon, representing DOH and adult mental health. I'm psychiatrist at Kauai Community Mental Health Center.

I'm Jennifer Anderson with Fanduel.

Darren Sato, clinical social worker.

Joe Roos with DEBDT.

Is there any other Members on Zoom? All right, with no further Members, let's move on to our next item of the agenda. We have Bo here with us gonna present the overview of the Fund economy. Please.

There we are. So, thanks, everyone. I'm Beau. It's been a real delight getting to know all of you via Zoom. And now to get to see you in person. I am a professor who has studied this now for three decades, going back to Singapore.

Singapore was a fascinating case study of going through the process that we're going through here in this room. And in a process that actually started in my classroom at UNLV, the Singapore Tourism Board in the early 2000s came into our classroom, said, tell us about this burgeoning universe.

And they said, kind of conspiratorially, Singapore is a beautiful place, but we're a little bit boring. And it was kind of cute, right? It was endearing. And we started a process of developing a database for them to make the best possible decisions for Singaporeans.

And in that case, it yielded, of course, massive resorts that became sort of iconic, almost a sub build celebrity in the film Crazy Rich Asians was Marina Bay Sands. And we saw achievements that we were quite proud of.

We saw not only 11% year over year tourism growth, we saw 3% growth in GDP of Singapore, an economy that's much, much larger than the one we're looking at here.

The Las Vegas Raiders and the NFL was a process that again started in our classrooms where the NFL was interested in what might happen if they moved a team to Las Vegas, which, as you all may know, in fact happened again.

That's one that started in a UNLV classroom in a way that, if you're interested, ESPN did a cute story on it, the New York Times did a good story on it, and once more, it started in the same spirit that I'm here in today.

Our job here is to give you the best possible information to make the best possible decisions for yourselves and for everyday Hawaiians. So I've done this now in 50 countries, and it's a crazy life to get to travel the world and study these issues that we're all talking about.

You're asking the right questions, I can assure you, and the same questions that have been engaged all over the world and now in 48 of the 50 states that have legalized gambling. But if I may, I'll show you why this one is special. I've had one credit card in my entire life and it's a Hawaiian air.

This is where I come en route to all of the places, whether it's Sydney, where I'm going next month, or Singapore or South Korea. I do the sort of stopover thing and spend a few days pre and a few days post. This is a very special place to me.

And as a ninth Islander, again, it's a tremendous honor to get to speak to you. I was asked today to speak to a big picture phenomenon that we're just starting to really grasp and get our hands around.

And I'm actually in the process of producing a book that will be released at the end of this year entitled the Fun Economy. We'll get into what that is, but let me start with this. In 2019, the most amazing thing happened and nobody talks about it.

For the first time in the history of planet Earth, 10% of all the money spent on all the Earth was spent by a tourist. When my grandparents grew up, that number was closer to 1%. And of course, in Hawaii, we understand very well how central this can be to the economy.

However, when you add in sports, as we know, of course, we have some massive sports enterprises here in Hawaii and entertainment, those three very well defined sectors. That's how we define the fun economy. The fun economy is those three Very well defined, very well measured sectors all over planet Earth. We actually reach an amazing number.

We hit 14%. 14% of all the money on planet Earth today is spent in the fun economy. That's nine times the size of the global pharmaceutical industry industry. That's seven times the size of the global apparel, the clothes, all the shoes from Nike to Armani, right? It's five times the size of the global automobile industry.

The fun economy is tourism plus sports plus entertainment. And again in a way that in our grandparents generation it was virtually nothing. Now how is this happening? Right? A lot of folks have a lot of questions, questions about there's another stat, it's three times the size of food in the world, right?

So a lot of people in both of our backyards, in both Las Vegas and Hawaii might dismiss us as having these kind of silly fun economies, right? Because we're very heavily tourism reliant.

What those people don't understand is how much of a mega industry this has become and how our two backyards have become global intellectual capitals and leaders in what's become a mega industry. We worldwide. So let me ask you a question. I always ask this of my students.

Do you think that that 14%, like 14 cents out of every dollar spent on planet Earth this year and next year and the year after that, do you think that this is the peak and we'll never see a bigger day and it's going down, or do you think we're headed up from here?

What do you think we're headed up? There's just no other way for it to go. And here's the reason why. This is another one of those things that nobody talks about, but is a really amazing and frankly happy story.

Do you know that we live in the first period in the history of planet Earth where 50% of the people who live on Earth are middle class or above? 50%. The rise of the global middle class, which is driving so much of this is an incredibly happy story. Again, we look at our ancestors.

The vast majority of our ancestors lived in worlds that were 99% poor and 1% middle class or above. We now are at 50% on planet Earth, middle class or above. And we're going to be at two thirds by the end of this decade.

Outside of the United States, what's happening is a massive rise in the global middle class. 35 million people in India last year went from poverty up into the middle class. Another 35 million in China. But tens of millions of people in places like Vietnam and Mexico and Kenya and kind of Surprising places all over the planet.

And you know, the first thing that we buy, we actually have data from Visa, the credit card company Visa that shows this. The first thing that people buy when they escape poverty, where really all you can buy are, is, you know, cereal and diapers, right?

And the things you desperately need once you join the middle class, what do you buy? You buy trips, you buy ball games, you buy Taylor Swift concerts. The first thing that you start to buy are things in the fun economy. So 14% of all the money spent in all the world is a floor, not a ceiling.

We're probably en route to 20%. One in five dollars pesos yen euros on planet Earth will soon be spent in the fun economy, which makes the decision not to put pressure on this body of really important Hawaiians, but makes these decisions all the more important because after all, if you operate a really beloved amusement park, right?

As you could say, this is sort of a metaphor for what we have here in Hawaii. This is a place that is beloved as a tourism destination. So is Las Vegas, right? It's a place that people love.

But the moment that you stop building new amusement parks or new roller coasters at the amusement park is the moment that the product kind of stagnates and folks stop coming to your amusement park. And so I would close by asking this question, and this is one that I think is really important.

And again, you're asking the right questions. Some of the questions you're asking have really good answers. You're lucky to do this today because many, many places have looked at this hard and in depth way for decades. We have lots of good data. And some of the things you're afraid of, you actually don't have to be afraid of.

Some of the things you're concerned about, things you should be concerned about, other things have been solved, right? But if we look at sort of the fun economy worldwide, is this a good thing? Right? Because fun's not automatically good. Cocaine is fun, right? I'm told. But nobody would prescribe mass consumption of cocaine, right?

Clearly the world has had negative experiences with fun. We've all had negative experiences. We've probably all had a night, right?

Now as we look at this phenomenon, global fun economy, which is the great undertold economic story of our time, it turns out if you do it right, it can not only be good for the economy, it can be good for, for you. And here's why. So did your grandma ever say this? Right?

We've probably all been told this, right? Money can't buy happiness and she was right to a degree. We now actually have 25 years of what's called happiness research, looking at the people who are really, really happy in the world. And it turns out your grandma was right about money not being able to buy happiness.

When you buy stuff, when you buy things, when you buy fancy jewelry or fancy cars or something, the people who buy stuff, it actually is a little bit like buying a big bag of chocolate and pounding it right away. You have a sugar high when you buy a really shiny thing.

But then what happens after your sugar high? What happens to you? Crash, right?

And you actually end up lower than you started. But here's where your grandma was wrong. And this is what's really cool about, like the last five years of happiness research. If you buy experiences, you end up happier than you were prior to the purchase. So think of the average tourist to Hawaii. We've actually measured this.

Now here's what happens. Before she goes to Hawaii, she actually sees an increase in happiness before she even comes. Because she thinks to herself, I've got this brutal work life and my boss has just been brutal, but at least I have that trip to Hawaii coming up, right?

And you actually see measured spikes in happiness before you experience the product, which is kind of an amazing thing. And then you come to Hawaii, you see huge spikes in happiness while you're in Hawaii, because you're in Hawaii, you're experiencing the fun economy thing. And then the most amazing thing happens.

You go home and you actually see an additional spike in happiness after you've gone home. Why? Because you re experience the trip as memory and that also has measurable increases. So I like to say that if you are in the fun economy business, and clearly Hawaii is, you're in the business of gross world happiness.

And conversely, if you have an obnoxious buddy who makes a ton of money and he's one of these people that needs to show everybody that he makes a ton of money by selling stuff. You might say, that's fantastic, good for you, but you're contributing to gross world sadness.

And so in the end, right, if we do this right, we have an opportunity to build epic new experiences in the global fun economy at exactly the moment in planet Earth's history when that is not only something that people are seeking, but something that economies like ours desperately need to do.

So once more, we have answers to a lot of the sort of more in depth questions on everything that's been asked. And you're going to hear about some of them from one of my colleagues at unlv Alan Feldman, the Responsible Gaming piece.

But that is what I was asked to talk about today is the global phenomenon that is this moment's fun economy and the importance of what we've all come together to do, which is of course to advise and ultimately lead a place that's really, really important and a place that's near and dear to our hearts here in the global fun economy.

So with that, that's the last slide that I have. And thank you for listening to the professor talk.

Thanks so much. Members, questions before we go to the next presentation. Go ahead.

Mahalo Bo. Appreciate the. Yeah, the presentation and stuff. How does the fun economy framework apply in places where land, culture and identity shape development decisions rather than pure visitor experience? That's the right question.

And you're not alone, because that is so right now, for example, Thailand is a place, right? It's thinking deeply about culture and place and history while simultaneously recognizing its economic force, that is Tourism. Into. Can speak into the mic, please. Is there a mic? Yeah, it's. Sorry, there's no visible mic.

So we were just saying that the answer is it needs to be absolutely incorporated into the conversation. And once more, what I would say is the good news is you're not alone, right? This isn't the first place that's had to consider these kinds of things.

And what I would really recommend is making sure that the conversations happen with places like this, where this is happening. Most years of my career, I've done this on six continents during the actual calendar year.

And in all of those places, not to diminish any individual level cultural considerations, but in all of those places, the cultural considerations are massive. Boston is a place that now has a Wynn. If you've ever seen the Wynn in Las Vegas, there's now one of those in the heart of Boston.

I went to college in Boston in a million years because of the culture of Boston, which is very much still on almost a 1600s culture in a lot of ways.

I never imagined that that would be a place when I went to college there that would embrace this in the way that it has and frankly, as successfully as it has.

But the answer is these are the questions that need to be asked and that we need to look to other places that have considered these similarly and look to data, look to their expressed experience, qualitative information as well on how that has been experienced pre and post. Right. Yeah. Thank you.

I just have one. One more question. Go ahead. What experience have you had working with native or indigenous organizations in destination based gaming development?

So in most of the United States jurisdictions. It's been with Native American and tribal organizations in. In New Zealand as well. The indigenous population of New Zealand has been very active in these conversations in Australia as well, in Peru as well. Again, the questions. Super important. Right.

Of indigenous populations and social and economic and cultural impacts are prime in a number of those jurisdictions. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You didn't have experience working with dental? With what? I'm sorry, did you have experience? Yeah, yeah.

In each of those places? Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in each of those places. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in each of those, again, similar sort of settings as this one where it's about, hopefully we're friends from a university that studies this. Here's all that we know.

Now it's up to you to make the best possible decisions as leaders of this community based on hopefully what's been a helpful exercise in us providing to you all of the data that we have. Okay, that's all the question I didn't want to take over.

Before we go to our next questions, Bo, do me a favor. Just explain your credentials and the reason why you can speak on this. Just because not many, not everybody knows your expertise in education.

So. Yeah. So I am the Sartre Chair of. Of Gaming Studies at both the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the University of Nevada, Reno. I actually started studying this as an undergraduate at Harvard University. This was the subject of my undergraduate thesis is what are the impacts of gambling in communities? My doctorate is in sociology.

So that is what we study is impacts on communities. So the questions of culture are questions that we ask first as sociologists. I've been a full professor at UNLV for many years. I've been at UNLV for a total of 30. I've been the Executive Director of the International Gaming Institute. I've been the research Director there.

And I've won the university's top career award, which is the Harry Reid State Silver State Award for Career Research excellence for doing this. And again, over 50 countries and over 30 states.

Thank you.

Weird math question. In all kinder, math is not my thing. But in looking at these numbers, I'm looking at the 10%, which is tourism. And then it goes, you said to 14% when you add in the sports. Gaming, Right?

Sports and entertainment.

Yeah, it says on the slide gaming.

Yeah. Including gaming. Yeah, entertainment includes.

So the gaming is not in the 10%?

No, the 10% is tourism. Yep. And then another, it's roughly 3% entertainment, 1%. Sports gets us to 14.

Because, I mean, I'm I'm a sports. That's where I travel pretty much. So. And I'm factoring that in with the gaming at 4% with the 10. I mean, that doesn't sound like a lot to me.

14% of.

Of you said it becomes 14.

Yeah.

From the 10.

Yeah, yeah. So 14% of all the money spent on earth is spent in those three sectors, which it. Yeah. And 14% is hard to contextualize. That's why we add things like that's nine times the size of the pharmaceutical industry.

I understand that, but I'm thinking of the 4%.

Yeah.

You know, when I'm thinking the 10% for regular tourism, which is what we do here in Hawaii. Right? That's right. And you add 4% with sports. To me, sports is a lot. So I'm just trying to tease that out in my mind. What if that is actually gaming?

So, yeah, understand that of the 10% of tourism, many of those places, Singapore is one where the tourism is driven by people who are visiting the Marina Bay Sands Hotel Casino. Right. So part of the 10% number is global gaming industry numbers. Right. So.

So yeah, it's in there as well. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. So you're saying the gaming is actually also in the 10%?

Gaming is in all three. And then we account for the overlaps. Take out any to make sure there's no double counting. Right. But yeah, there's entertainment, that's gaming and non gaming. There's tourism, that's gaming and non gaming. And gaming is more so.

So when you think about the different things you can add to the mix, stadiums are one of them. The gaming product has been one of the most lucrative drivers of tourism that we've ever seen in a way that no other tools in our tool chest as tourism developers have been, at least from the data. Right.

And so as we think about tourism development, it's important to understand that gaming is also embedded in the 10%. It's also embedded in the entertainment. It's also embedded in sports. Right. And so, yeah, when you add it all together, it's a mega industry. Yeah.

I guess I just don't understand the differentiation between your slides then the 10% and the 14%. Because it looked to me like gaming was exclusively on the 14% slide. I'll take your word for it.

So, yeah, entertainment includes gaming. Right. Things like gaming revenues. But there certainly are tourism revenues that are derived from somebody traveling to go to a hotel casino. Right. Las Vegas is a really good example of that. Right. Billions and Billions of dollars of tourism monies. Right. Spent on that.

All right, we're going to move on to Zoom. We'll come back here. We'll just ask, is there anyone in Zoom with any questions?

Yes.

Go ahead.

My question is concerns experiences and quality of life. You've indicated that buying stuff doesn't make you happy, but buying travel may make you happy. Where does gambling fit into that? Is gaming the type of experience that makes you happy?

Yeah. So, again, I'm sure you're familiar, this happiness literature is really quite new. Right. It really was at the APA meetings in 1998 when Martin Seligman introduced the idea that we should really look at this. And the finding thus far is that buying experiences in General leads to happiness. Buying stuff doesn't. Not always. Right.

We've all seen exceptions to these rules. Right. And there are plenty of instances where we can cite exceptions to these rules, but in General, that's the case. We do not have data as yet on the specific activity of gambling and how that contributes to this new literature.

Do you have an opinion or a prediction based on your incredible experience?

Yeah, thank you. No, I think that for some, of course, gambling, many. Right. Gambling is something that is an experiential pleasure. Right. Clearly that's the case. It's been done since the dawn of time, but we don't have any data to support that. So I'd be hesitant to kind of go too far.

Thank you. Is there another person in Zoom?

I'm Stephen Bondsmith. I'm a professor at University of Hawaii.

Stephen, are you a Member of the working group?

Yes.

Thank you.

I have two questions. So one was about. You talked about the growth and fun economy from almost zero to being 20% of spending. Do you have any information on where that growth. When I look at certain spending trends in Hawaii or in Las Vegas, that growth is not really in Hawaii or Las Vegas. It's been.

I would expect it would be in, you know, additional destinations rather than in. In established places.

No, that's very true. So if I wasn't clear on that, the fun economy is happening in explosive ways on the back of 35 million folks in India that went from poverty up into the middle class last year.

The Indian Premier League, we're all sports fans here, which is a cricket league, generates more revenue per game than the NFL now. Right. What's important for Hawaii to consider is, of course, not only whether that is something that we'll see increase in America, but also whether it's something that will increase in places like Asia.

That are, of course, important inbound tourism markets for Hawaii as a tourism destination. So. Yes. But globally, the massive explosive growth of the fun economy is something that's happening in places that most Americans don't think much about.

If you look at just the trends in the fun economy in the US rather than globally, which is 90% of visitors to Las Vegas, 80% of visitors to Hawaii, what are the trends there?

Significant increases in entertainment and sports. When you look in. Again, these graphs are really striking. I'm sure you've seen them. Right. We saw massive fall off in tourism during Covid and then in most jurisdictions, not Maui, but in most jurisdictions, we've seen returns to post or pre pandemic levels.

So we've seen tourism growth in the United States kind of stagnate a bit and certainly not grow anywhere near as massively as we've seen on a global scene.

Okay. My second question is whether or not you've done any. Look at my worry with casino. And this happens when you look at a lot of the economic impact reports on casinos, is that when people are attending casinos, they're not doing something else that they would have done instead.

So if the casino was there, they're not a restaurant in Waikiki. Right. So it's rather than creating additional expenditure experience, it's really just shifting expenditure. Have you done any work on that? What? That sort of substitution effect. So this is. Yeah.

The cannibalization effect. Right. Or the substitution effect. And it frankly depends on the kind of gambling that's been legalized. Right.

When you look at places that bring in new populations into the area, which would be the hope, of course, in a place like Hawaii, then you actually do see increases in revenues for nearby restaurants, for example, and nearby hotels and other amenities with other forms of gambling, you see less. So.

So we did a massive substitution effect study for Massachusetts and found that effect that led to them going down the path that they did.

So what are the conditions then that determine whether or not a place gets new spending versus cannibalizing their existing spending, new customers?

And typically, again, that's a tourism phenomenon. Right. Where you see folks whose dollars woke up in Topeka and go to sleep in a place like Hawaii. Right. So, yeah, it's very strongly correlated with tourism in the literature.

Thank you.

All right, let's come back here. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your presentation. I thought it was very in depth and I appreciate your professionalism and your research. But I have a few questions, and I'm looking at this, and I'm wondering if it's a boilerplate of areas that you might have visited in the US and other places in the world.

Have you, in your research, have you incorporated Hawaii's existing tourism involvement or, you know, just to say that Hawaii depends highly on tourism.

Yeah.

And you know, people come here for the weather, for the culture and for the beaches, so they have that reason to come here. Right. Hotel rooms are, you know, dependent on that type of visitor. No.

When, if, if you had a, a recent or a similar place like Hawaii, that depends on that economic growth, adding gambling to the mix, what was the outcome? And did displace gamblers from actual visitors? That's, that's the first question. The other question is you mentioned a lot of revenue and you, you mentioned visitor revenue.

And, and I, and I was glad to hear that because, you know, the end game is new money the state can generate. So the, the numbers that you might have shared, what percent of that, that that state raised was local funds versus new money tourists.

These are the right questions. So you asked about there being a boilerplate. The answer is there's not.

In each of these places we've done studies for the individual jurisdiction based or organization based on the concerns I mentioned the NFL study, the NFL had a list of concerns about relocating a team to Las Vegas and looking at all the different impacts across the range of things.

And we produced for them a report that looked at each of those individual questions and provided the data that provided the information necessary to make the best decision. So in each of these places we've done new studies in order to address the questions that local jurisdictions have, because each jurisdiction is unique and has its own challenges.

So for example, Singapore is a place where we know about the new money by virtue of looking at the increase in gdp, in other words, all of the money and all of the economy and then running some aggressions to look at how much of that was attributable to the 11% bump in tourism that they saw when they, when they did this.

Right. We looked at the ways in which, you know, the new visitors were in that case, a number of high rollers. Right. And the ways in which their spend is different from folks who might be spending less money.

So again, yeah, we've done those kinds of studies both pre and post, where the pre studies are ones where a jurisdictional say here, here are the things that we really want to know more about. And then we go find out, provide the best information that's out there on case studies.

And then we've done post studies after the implementation to see what the effects were. It's really kind of the best way to go about it.

Okay. And on the second question, total revenue. Yeah. Was how much, what percent of that revenue was from the locals versus the tourists?

So that was what we looked at with Singapore. Right. So that was what I was trying to answer. Sorry. With the GDP point is looking at the new money. Right. And then looking at how much of that was derived from, in their case, two resorts that were developed with casinos.

So you would say 30% versus in

their case, it was a very high number. Right. I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but I can email it to you. But you're right to ask that. Right. Because new money, again, you want dollars that wake up in one jurisdiction and go to bed in another. Right.

That is a powerful dollar and economic force. I'm telling a group of experts here, you all live in Hawaii, you know this very, very well. And so, yes, you're right to ask those very questions.

Thank you. Well, feel free to email us and then we'll send it out to the Members. That's good. Yes.

We've also, we did a series of reports for Japan, which, as you know, are building a massive resort. And Japan's an important inbound tourism market for you. All right. And so these are considerations that I think are important for this body and we can send that as well. In Japan. We looked at every one of these issues.

Professor, is there any particular form of gaming that is much more beneficial than others?

Yeah, the worst is what you've got today. Yeah. You've got massive amounts of illegal gambling. And the data suggest that when you bring in a legalized and then you bring in, of course, a process that uses funds to police that, that's the way to get rid of what is by far the most negative impacts of gambling.

The most positive ones are ones like the Singapore model as it pertains to the kinds of things we look at. At which are new monies. Right. New dollars put in the pockets of folks who are here that can go to bed in Honolulu, having awakened in Sydney. So. Yeah.

So tourism oriented gaming tends to be associated with the highest impacts. My mentor, Bill Eatington, who was the founding father of the field, developed a whole sort of hierarchy. And at the top is that. And at the bottom is illegal gambling, which. Which is what we've heard you have in fairly rampant fashion here.

Great. What about, may I ask, the difference

between brick and mortar gaming versus online gaming? Yes. In General, more positive in the Sense of job creation with brick and mortar. More positive in the sense of, you know, again, the capacity to bring something that will attract people from bigger and bigger concentric circles. Right. There aren't people who travel for online gaming. Right.

I shouldn't say that. Right. I suppose it happens if somebody really wants to have a safe place and it might be illegal in their jurisdiction. We saw that in Cambodia actually, where they were fleeing an illegal jurisdiction to go over the border and gamble online. But that's not what we see. Right.

Brick and mortar has significantly more positive impacts.

All right, is there any questions in zoom? Looks like there's no questions in zoom. And is there any questions here?

I just want to follow up, you know, the online as it's happening now in all 50 states. What's your thoughts on the loss of revenue within states as online is happy times for a lot of people. They can do it now. And the amounts of revenue that both online and brick and mortar would bring in.

Yeah. So online as it stands now is illegal in Hawaii. Right. But that doesn't mean that people aren't doing it and in a way that's not taxed. Right. And so that's an example obviously of revenues lost to the jurisdiction, assuming that Hawaii is a place that could legalize.

So I think when you're Talking about all 50 states being able to gamble online, you're probably talking about the prediction markets, which is this relatively new phenomenon where a number of businesses have claimed federal legislation allows them to take bets in a way that's legal. That's something for the courts to decide and they are deciding it.

And it's massively active and controversial in the courts right now. But as it stands now, gaming is largely a states rights issue in the United States. And each state gets to decide its own approach to gambling in hearings like this one.

And then on a follow up to Art's question, if you look at cultural wise, is there a state or a country that you could match us up to population based cultural inclination, background that those numbers, whether it be revenue stream on tourism. Tourism, gaming, Sports. Gaming. Yeah, kick it the ball any which way you want.

Is there a state that you can. I'm thinking about.

Exactly. I think this is a great question not just for like data sharing, but for conversation sharing. Right. Being able to pick up the phone and say, hey, Singapore, which I actually think is a tremendous. Again, it's not a perfect, it's not Hawaii.

But there are a lot of affinities in both size and in terms of historical parallels. There's all kinds of interesting ones. Singapore is also a place where. Singapore is a place where. Where. I mean, it is. It's illegal to chew gum in Singapore, right? It is. I mean, they put you to death for possession of drugs.

And they have gone into what is perhaps the most legalized gaming era of anybody in their, you know, immediate neighborhood, at least in a way that has transformed their gdp. That has seen what was once a largely unvisited for fun jurisdiction turn into a much more successful tourism jurisdiction. They regulate extremely well.

And I think Singapore in general is a model that the rest of us look at and because it's not proximity, because it is still very far. But I think there are some reasons why my friends in Singapore might be a wonderful conversation. Right. Even beyond data sharing, to get to know these folks.

One last question. If we had to gather data in the past 10 years, those that have resided in Hawaii and went to Vegas, they could give me some numbers on.

I don't have that off the top of my head. Having said that, there's a reason that we are ninth Islanders. Right. And it's not just to gamble. Right. As somebody who's taught, I've taught 100 plus classes at UNLV. All of those classes were 10% Hawaiian, 20% Hawaiian kids. Right.

The Hawaiian kids and my Las Vegas kids love each other because they both grew up around this tourism industry that they both love and have respect for and understand the challenges. We both live in places where we know that sometimes the tourists are like house guests that stay five days.

And you think afterwards, I think that should have been a three day trip. And so you create these beautiful sort of conversations. There's a reason our two jurisdictions have this sort of affinity.

So I don't have numbers, but a lot of it is also right, that kind of knowledge sharing, exchange sharing and people going back and forth because we know each other's tourism industries. Right.

Hold on, give me a moment. Go ahead.

Singapore. When you look at the studies there and you talked about how strict there are in crime has, did the crime rate go up with gaming or down because yes, people get thrown in jail for drugs and.

Yeah, yeah, Singapore. It's tough to move crime from 0.001 to anything. You were just gonna say, that's right. Crime is not a concern in Singapore. Singapore. However, Singapore is a place where the problem gambling rate, when they legalized gambling introduced thousands of machines and tables went down, which people are always astounded to hear about.

But the reason is they then they didn't have prior to that any resources for problem gamblers at all. Right. And the people who were gambling in Singapore were gambling in a variety of different ways. And when they got into trouble, they didn't have a place to go. And then Singapore built a world class safety net.

And again, that was 20 years ago. The safety nets have gotten better then. And so what's really interesting in the pre post in Singapore is not so much the crime, which was already microscopic, it's that the problem gambling rates went down after they introduced one of the biggest gambling expansions in the history of the world.

The problem gambling rate in America. We measured it in 1976 and it was the same number that it is today, which is also an astounding figure to most folks. Now, again, we've got a lot more access, but we also have a lot more treatment, research, prevention programs. A lot of those are research based in a way.

That's been one quick last question to follow up on Art's question. When you send us some of this information back, can you forecast in there what your idea or what your thoughts are on new revenue to the state of Hawaii?

Sure. Thank you. Thank you. And I think Jeremy Aguero is going to be speaking to it. That's the work that he does. And so that's. That's a question. He won't make it today, but in the next, he is the one who does that.

Okay, thank you.

All right, go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I'm wondering both if there's a parallel to be drawn here between. And it goes to Art's question too. So Vegas didn't have the sports economy. We had certainly people that would visit for tournaments and such.

But with the NFL golden Knights, with all the new professional sports that have come to town, we already had gaming, but sports has been additive to Vegas. Is there a parallel to be drawn to the tourism economy that we have today here in Hawaii?

And then if you added gaming and the additive sort of parallel conversation there or.

Yeah, there are many jurisdictions around the world where again we talk about the roller coaster effect. Six Flags in the LA area is a place that has the most roller coasters on planet Earth. Now, I promise this comes back to the question.

When I was a kid growing up in Las Vegas, we'd go there every summer and every summer there'd be a brand new roller coaster. And as a kid you think, wow, coolest place on earth. They have a brand new roller coaster every summer.

And then you become an adult and realize, Oh, they have to build a new roller coaster. Every summer. Otherwise the people stop coming to Six Flags Magic Mountain, the product stagnates and economies in Valencia shrivel and some cases die, right?

So the degree to which, especially in a booming, growing global fun economy, the importance of adding new rides to the amusement park, whether it's sports, whether it is gaming, whether it is, in our case, a giant ball.

If you've seen this sphere in Las Vegas, right, With all kinds of new, innovative programming, now there's a thing in the world called a concert, and there's something else above it. I don't know what it's called, right. But that's the kind of innovation economy.

And I'm not saying anything novel or anything all know intuitively, but that drives economies, right? Is that level of innovation and adding new toys to the playroom and adding new roller coasters to the amusement park, right?

Now, of course, those have costs and you need to take into consideration you can't just build or give your kid all the toys, right? But without that, as we've learned in a lot of jurisdictions, including Las Vegas, right. We've had stagnation periods in Las Vegas, and it's tracks very well with stagnation of the product.

We've had good years these past few years in a way that is attributable to the sports phenomenon, which is relatively new and had been untried before the moment that it started in our UNLV classrooms. Thank you, chair.

All right, is there any other Members? We're just going to take a brief recess. Real quick recess.

We are back from recess and thank you for your patience. I do have a question. I. I get that people come to Hawaii happy and go home happy. But if most people who gamble lose, will they still be happy when they go home?

I was just asked this question in Sydney, Australia, where they have similar sort of phrasing. So again, people in Singapore, and I'm sorry, in Sydney, lost several 100,000,000 dollars last year gambling. They spent more money going to sports matches. Right.

And one way to look at it is, you know, do you lose money that money that you've spent going to the sports match? Right. No. We think of that as an expenditure on something that has been fine because of the language of gambling. We think gambling dollar is lost. Right.

Rather than a gambling dollar dollars spent on entertainment. So, yes, there are plenty of people, and they vote with their feet. Right. Who go and gamble because they go home having bought an experience that they enjoy. So, yeah, it's. And not everybody. You're about to hear about some folks for whom that is not the case. Right.

In the next presentation.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you, Bo, for your presentation and answering our questions. We're going to move on to our next item on the agenda. We have Responsible Gaming. And Alan, before you start, would you mind just sharing your credentials and your expertise with us?

Sure. I spent 35 years in the gaming industry. A significant part of that was coming to meetings just like this. In the very, very early days of that, the early 90s, one of the first questions that was always asked was about problem gambling. And to be perfectly honest, I noticed that there really weren't a lot of answers.

And I mean from anyone, not just the industry, there weren't a lot of answers. So a group got together. The initial money came from Mr. Boyd, who funded me the first donation and became the national center for Responsible gaming.

And through 30 years, I've been on the board, served as its chair for 12 of those, and I'm now chair emeritus. We've renamed it the International center for Responsible Gaming because we're now doing a lot of work overseas. What that organization does is provide money for research. The organization doesn't do the research.

That's all done by researchers like Dr. Bernhardt and many, many others around the world. We're going to talk about some of those results today. I found this topic just absolutely compelling.

And so I spent a significant part of those 35 years, years working in this field getting to know people in recovery, getting to know the clinical community, getting to know the research community.

And the only reason that I've left the American Gaming association hall of Fame on this slide is because they specifically called out my work in response to gaming as the rationale for my being elected to that position. Scheme Group. I'm currently the chair of the Nevada Committee Advisory Committee on Problem Gambling.

So we're the group that takes a look at the needs that exist in the state. Make sure there's funds to cover those needs. And I'm now a distinguished fellow at the gaming Institute at UNLV. And I just want to say to Dr. Dhillon, I know you're online. Thank you for that question.

Thank you also for the question about happiness. This is something I am absolutely focused on right now. And I think we're going to come away when we have empirical evidence with some pretty stunning realities that gambling is fun. Even losing can be fun. In fact, sometimes you talk with your friends more about the losing.

There's almost as much laughter about that as there is about the winning. I'm not saying that this is necessarily good or bad. I'm not making a judgment. I'm just saying when this activity is done properly, socially, there are benefits that we're not quite calculating. And we end up talking about gaming only in dollar amounts.

And that's not entirely fair. We can also end up talking about gaming in only negative consequences. And that's definitely not entirely fair. Fair. So let's talk a little bit about both.

Alan, Sorry, real quick. Let me just. Because he wanted a background of it. Let me just. You know, we spent 30 years in the gaming industry.

ATM resorts where you recently spearheaded the launch of Game Sense and innovative player focused responsible gambling program that encourages players to adopt behaviors and attitudes that can reduce the risk of developing gambling disorders. This landmark program is now available at all MGM US Properties.

You're a frequent speaker on responsible gaming at conferences, universities and media events around the world. You served as chair of both the national center for Responsible Gaming as well as the Nevada Advisory Committee on Problem Gambling. You also serve as a Member of the Gambling Research Advisory Committee for Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

And in 2002, the casino management association honored Feldman as a Gaming Professional of the year. And in 2009, you've also received a lifetime achievement award in gaming communications from the American Gaming Association. I think that says a lot about your credentials. So I just wanted to highlight that so we can get a better idea of who you are.

I wasn't really planning on doing any of that, but thank you for that. I do want to tell you a little bit about the International Gaming Institute it's been around more than 30 years. Our role is to do research into all of the questions you're asking.

And I want to say, as Bo did, I just want to validate. You're asking the exact right questions. How are we going to be sensitive to culture and values here? Not what's happening in Ohio, not what's happening in Florida here. How are we going to ensure that we don't harm people, we don't see an increase in crime?

Obviously, a very important question, one that has now been answered many, many times over. So I think that what we intend to do at the IGI is deliver research that can provide answers to some of these questions and help create solid policy decisions anywhere in the world. I just want to start off by saying the basics.

Life involves risk. I can't imagine there's one of you who has not, at some point in the last five days, turned on the Olympics. That is one of the greatest displays of risk I've ever seen in my life. I mean, people can kill themselves doing the things they're doing, but they've learned how to assess it.

They've learned how to make judgments about what should or shouldn't be done, about what their individual capacity may be. And once in a while, Lindsey Vaughn, it doesn't work. And once in a while, Michaela Shifrin looks brilliantly, and we kind of celebrate both. We understand both.

The issue here is, should the Olympics not be done because Lindsey Bond might get injured? I think we would all agree the answer is no. Should the Olympics have a doctor and a medical team ready in case someone does get hurt? Of course.

And the same thing can be said of any ski resort, any surfing competition, whatever the activity may be. You do have to be able to understand that there are some negative consequences to anything that we do. So how are we prepared to deal with those? In short, gambling should be a source of entertainment.

It is not something that should be that should lead to financial, social, or emotional ruin. It does in some cases, but that isn't the intent, certainly not of the legalized industry. Legal buys, different story. And when you look at commercial gambling, you'll get more of this from Bo. There are several things that are really important about it.

It's a very large employer, can be, if it's brick and mortar and has many different aspects to. It isn't just a casino inside four walls. It's a large employer. It's a large taxpayer, it's a large investor. It's a clean industry.

It's not putting aluminum into the streams and ocean and, and these companies are generally very, very community minded. And that's important as you consider who's going to be doing this, what's their track record in the community, that's kind of critical. I think that sometimes there is a belief that the industry is only looking for suckers.

It's only looking for people who are going to lose their money. And that just isn't true. We wouldn't have 43 million people coming to Las Vegas if that were true.

The industry is looking for healthy players, people who are able to balance these things in their lives, people who have disposable income and people who are making informed decisions about what they're doing. So this idea that the industry is just predatory is simply not true. We do know that there is gambling harm.

That's a good part of what we're going to talk about. There have been quite a few universities, institutions around the world. I've listed three of them here, including University of Sydney. The Cambridge Health alliance is Harvard, which has done a ton of work in this field.

And it has led to some really important insights into understanding gambling harm. And probably the most important of these. Gambling is common. Gambling disorder is not. Please don't misunderstand as I go through this. Gambling disorder is incredibly, incredibly devastating and it can cause great harm.

But it isn't the masses of people who we're talking about because the industry is generally trying to find people who can sustain their patronage over time. They're not looking for problems.

Beau had said that through all these years, from the 80s on, we've seen such explosive growth and gambling all over the United States and around the world, and yet the prevalence rates have stayed consistent all through this time. It shows disorder, by the way. I want to be clear about something. Disordered gambling is a clinical term.

It's the clinical term that's used to identify what we might otherwise call gambling addiction. There are people who experience harm from gambling. Maybe that's what we call problem gambling. In other words, it's not yet out of control, not yet something they can no longer control, but it's causing some harm of some kind.

The terms around all of this can get very confusing and I simply want to urge Hawaii to be very consistent about what they're talking about. Because the moment you jump into this, there are 16 different terms for this.

The point of this is to say that roughly 6% the adult population has either mild to severe harm or is experiencing the most severe harm, which is gambling disorder. The rest are gambling and having fun. And doing it again or not, whatever they choose to do. Gambling harm does operate on a continuum.

So don't want to take too much time with this. But I mentioned at the far end the severe harms and then the more mild group. But then you have everyone else in that area who has no harm. But the point is that you don't become addicted to this the first time you do it.

So you gamble a little, then you gamble a little more, and then you gamble a little more, and all of a sudden you start sliding to the right on this scale. At the same time, there are people on the right side of the scale who are moving over to the left.

They've had a conversation with a loved one, they've read a book, they're in treatment and they're correcting themselves. And that may mean that they're not gambling at all, which is fine. If that's what has to happen, that's good. That's how they get themselves right. So there's a lot of movement in here at any one moment.

These prevalence rates are taking moment or study that looks at that moment in time. What's really intriguing is how consistent they've been through all of those years. What is this then?

What has been discovered is that for some people, their brains are activated by gambling in the exact same way that drugs and alcohol can affect the human brain. Gambling is a substance as far as the brain is concerned. It's a substance.

And at this moment, I feel I have to say the human brain cannot tell the difference between calcium and draftings. The human brain makes no distinction about who is regulating this. So there's just as much exposure to potential problems from the prediction markets as there is from a more traditional regulated industry.

And that's because addiction is all about the relationship between the individual and the substance. For some people, you go out, you drink, you go home, you get up the next day, you go back to work, rinse and repeat day after day. No show of hands. Same for you folks online. Don't show your hands. Anyone ever get drunk?

It happens. Doesn't mean you do it every day. In fact, sometimes doing that is the very thing that sets you back on the straight and narrow. You sort of, you've established your limit, you know what that is, and you know that didn't feel good. So you come back into a more normal range.

And that's part of that Continuum idea that we talked about earlier. So as you move forward in this, you're going to need to define harm and over time, measure impact. I would Urge you to do some study of the population.

Now, I don't think there's anyone here who would suggest that there isn't problem gambling or gambling disorder in the Hawaiian community right now. I think we all know that there is.

The challenge is that there's very little those individuals can do about it unless they've got the wherewithal and the courage to walk into Dr. Dhillon's office and anyone else like it and say, I need help. And even then, there are a whole bunch of reasons why we don't need to discuss today. It's a thorny issue.

The Federal Government refuses to reimburse Medicare providers for gambling treatment. So if they don't have private insurance, it starts to get a little bit difficult. The point here is, understand what the problem is. Now, if you wait until after, if you do this, a year later, you go do a prevalence study.

What would anyone say, zero, well, now that we've opened a casino, now we have a problem? No, no, no, the problems exist currently. What you will have is the ability to address them. I should also just mention screening validity. The screens that are used to determine if someone has a problem are incredibly inconsistent.

So whatever you choose to do, you sort of want to stick to the same thing through time so that you're actually comparing apples to apples over time. So when asked, how do you address gambling harm? The answer is you get a broad coalition of community, government and industry.

You actually get a room full of people that looks very much like this, and you start having conversations about how you're going to go about providing for those who need some help. And in addressing gambling harm, there are these six pillars and I'm not going to read all of this when we get to the end.

For those of you who are on Zoom, I have my email address. If you'd like hard copy of this, we'll get it, or you can just ask the Committee and they can send it. But broadly speaking, prevention, doing things that, that before anyone has gambled the first time has set some sort of guardrails.

Education is critically important because this is really a misunderstood topic. Treatment, a continuum of care, not a one and done, but treatment that actually provides for ongoing support. Enforcement is a very important part of this.

And part of the enforcement is giving law enforcement the team teeth and the tools they need to shut down the elite, because that's a very, very important part of this picture. Research, obviously. I work at a university, so I know I'm going research, but it's really important. You're not going to Know what's going on.

And then finally for your operator, your operator has certain responsibilities and policies that they need to put in. If I were to show you the policy model that is most common, it would look like this employee education. So employees know what their responsibilities are as it relates to customers. By the way, co workers as well.

A guest self limit program. This is usually technology based but it does allow someone to say, hey, don't send me anything for six months. Don't send me any. I need to take a time out. Okay, that's, that's kind of entry level problem. You want to be supportive and have the ability to do it.

Voluntary self exclusion is usually statewide. Really important that you understand that. If we have 48, well we don't have 48 states with voluntary self exclusion. It's got some issues and states don't exchange any information.

So it's different for Hawaii because someone who lives here who is self excluded, you're probably going to be able to identify and that they could then go to California or Washington or Nevada or New Mexico or Arizona and gamble there you have no control over. But that's asking a lot.

It's a heck of a lot different in Massachusetts, which has self exclusion next door to Connecticut, which has self exclusion. If you drive across that state line, you're in free territory because if you signed up in Massachusetts, you just go to Connecticut, sign up in Connecticut, go to Massachusetts.

So you've got a little more control over things here. Public education, very important. We'll actually talk about that in a minute. But it's important we have a discussion about this. This is something that's been part of human history for tens of thousands of years. This didn't just happen.

The operators themselves, especially today, these credit policies were a bit different 30 years ago, 40 years ago. But today, because they're run like such very strict business policies, the credit policies are usually already in place before the state even needs to worry about it. Treatment and research funding is absolutely critical.

No one is going to do it unless you do. The best way to do this is to determine the number. Whether it's an absolute number or a percentage. Take it out of the revenue stream from the gaming activity and just set it aside.

The Department of Health would use it to provide for state paid, state funded treatment for people who are getting into trouble. One other thing I would say, I'm sorry I keep diverging. Gamblers, especially those in recovery, which is where you can measure it, tend to gamble in 345 different ways.

So again, having a casino isn't going to be the thing that triggers someone. Chances are they've been triggered. And the casino is what's going to help you find them. The casino is what's going to help you pay for treatment for them.

And the casino is also going to be your partner and trying to keep the population healthy because it doesn't survive if that doesn't happen. And then property signage and RG responsible gaming disclosures about where to get information, where to go if there are concerns or problems.

You all have varying levels, statutory, regulatory, or in some cases, operational policies that you're going to be developing. The only thing I want to say to you at the outset is be mindful of trying to pack too much into the legislation because things change.

And if I were to tell you what was new and interesting and beneficial 10 years ago, we've since found out it doesn't work, but we have a whole new list of things. So you need to allow for flexibility. And the same with regulators. Sometimes when regulators get something in regulations, very hard for them to change too.

This is one of those topics where flexibility is going to help everybody. I mentioned self exclusion, the paradox and potential of it. Self exclusion, when you study, it has low enrollments and kind of uncertain outcomes. Some states, please, Hawaii, please do not do this. Criminalize a relapse. There's nothing good that will come of that.

Some states, please don't do this. I don't want to name names. New Jersey, some states have, when you want to sign up for self exclusion, you're signing up for a state program, you have to go to the casino. Anyone want to guess why that might be a problem?

It's like saying to an alcoholic, well, the first step to getting help is to go to a bar. Okay, so they send you to a casino. And what happens? You say, I'm here to sign up for self exclusion.

An officer of the state wearing a badge and a gun takes you off to a room, which we might understand as a holding cell, takes your picture, fingerprints, you as you sign documents.

How do you think you feel at this low, low, low moment in your life where you finally have the courage and the wherewithal, maybe even the support, familial support, to ask for help. And the state says, oh, you're a criminal. Makes you feel that way.

Anyway, so I'm very much in favor of leaving this as open as possible.

A certified therapist in the state should have the ability to vouch for an individual and have them sign up for self exclusion to be able to do it on Your phone would be even better because sometimes you get to that moment, you're ready to make a decision and you know it's easy to turn away from it.

Lastly, bless you. Voluntary self exclusion really should be seen as the gateway into a continuum as opposed to solving the problem. It doesn't solve the problem. It's the first step to getting there. I mentioned why public education or that public education is important.

If you have ever read news stories of people who have gotten engaged negatively with gambling and it's gone horribly wrong, oftentimes reporters being reporters will want to talk to the family, want to talk to the best friend business partners. What did you know and what do you hear them say in these news stories? We had no idea.

We thought they were just having fun. Ever since her husband died, the casino was the only place that ever gave her joy. This has nothing to do with Hawaii, but in case you remember some variant of that that was said about a woman who lost $200 million of her foundation, her family foundation's money.

She was a former mayor, a public figure. The people closest to her didn't see it, only talked about it, got so excited. We thought it was a good thing.

There needs to be a better understanding of what this is and not just taking at face value the outside because anyone who has serious harm from any substance is to going. Going to try and cover it up and that's, that's what you do.

I mentioned earlier some policy pillars, but education, harm prevention, early risk detection and intervention, treatment and recovery, support product standards, which you will get to at some point, that's going to be important. Ethical accountability for operators and yes, continuous research. Keep going with understanding what's actually happening.

One of the more important things that I could say to you as a state, I'm not suggesting that this state does operate in silos. I'm saying on this topic it's really important that they not that this is really an important topic that has a lot of interactions.

It's why I mentioned that having a seat around the table, you have a lot of folks from various parts of government, from the industry. The industry is critically important. The industry is the one that has the customers. So the industry has a critical role to play. People in the recovery community hearing their voices.

And I can assure you that that is a sometimes painful thing to hear, but you need to hear it. And academia would be another group that should be always involved. And lastly, before any policies are developed, before anything is codified into writing, please let some evidence don't fall for the we have to do something.

So let's just do that because you could actually end up harming more people. Diversion courts have shown some really, really interesting promise. Although the data is limited, it's really positive. And Clark county has a gambling diversion court.

So again, would recommend you at least think about that here for those cases where someone really does go overboard in some fashion and maybe causes harm to others. And then there needs to be some kind of a balance in funding on all of these things that we've been talking about. Okay, so you've heard talk of responsibly gambling.

I want to be clear that there are three main premises of response. Number one, the ultimate decision to gamble or not belongs to the individual. This is critical because if treatment is going to be successful, the individual has to say, I control myself. I am now going to gain control of myself.

I made that decision and that was a bad decision, but I'm going to make a good one now. That's okay. Get them on the road to treat. Another aspect of responsible gaming is this idea that different stakeholders should work together. I had a really hard time in Massachusetts convincing the gaming commission that I was serious about this.

They either thought I was trying to divert them or, you know, it was just. It was a really tough relationship. But I kept on saying that Stephen Crosby was the chair of the commission at the time. This is critical for the industry too. It's not just the state. We're in this together.

Someone while I've been on this trip, by the way, asked whether or not Hawaii was the largest per capita gaming community. And I think the answer is no. It's probably Massachusetts. Certainly when it comes to lottery, I have no idea how these people are buying. The water retains, they're buying.

But in any event, working together, different stakeholders, folks in the community, folks from academia, folks from the treatment Committee and public health. And then lastly, programs should be guided by a scientific approach, one of which is if you do find out that something isn't working, change it. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. This is an ever evolving.

We are learning more and more and more about this all time. The.

The time.

To be clear, RG programs as it relates to the companies are there to promote responsible gaming. They're not treating people, they're not identifying. In fact, they shouldn't be identified. They're not clinicians, they're not experts. You're going to have a dealer somehow magically look at someone and say, zero, you're a problem gambler.

Now, that doesn't mean they do nothing because there are some outward manifestations, but you don't know what's causing them. A person getting very emotional, person maybe having a fight with a partner or spouse, banging on the table, using foul language, whatever it may be. Deal with that. That's what RG programs are about. Deal with that.

That's a customer service issue. And if as you're walking out and things have calmed down, you're having a nice conversation now, as things are a little bit calmer now, you could say, and by the way, if you need any help, we do have this and hand them something or talk to them about it.

But please don't mistake RG programs as identification tools. You definitely have a couple of challenges that are unique. I think in Hawaii, one of them is that there is no problem infrastructure as we speak. Doesn't mean there aren't problem gamblers. There just isn't an infrastructure. There don't appear to be any problem gambling counselors.

I'm not suggesting that some of the counselors may not have dealt with this in their practice or in their past. It may be even in their professional training. But right now, if you search that interweb thingy, you will come up with no one. And the state hasn't established and should. What. What certifies?

How does someone earn a certification to be a problem? You have in counseling? It is a little bit different than drugs and alcohol. There may be folks on the. On the line who disagree with me and probably folks all over who disagree with me. I don't think it's as far off as it has been made to seem.

These two things, substance abuse counselors or substance abuse counselors, and gambling counselors in most states are treated separately. I think you actually have a very good opportunity to get started right away with their being married. And that sort of starts this. What are the opportunities here? Well, you have an alcohol and drug abuse division.

You can have an alcohol, gambling and drug abuse division and just expand what you have. It isn't as easy as simply adding it into the title, but the point is, some of that infrastructure is there. You're not starting necessarily all in Zero. In your judiciary system here in Hawaii, you already have diversion courts. Gambling is different.

Gambling needs to be. There are certain things that need to happen, but I think we could help train a judge or two in a pretty reasonable amount of time. They can come and see how we're doing this in Clark County. Many, many others have. Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey have come out to Clark county to understand this.

So obviously we welcome folks from Hawaii. And then as far as certification goes, there is an international gambling counselor certification board. They can actually do certifications of folks here in Hawaii specifically about gambling. And as I understand it, and I don't know the details, I'm sorry about that. But Jody Bechtold, who runs this group, has history here.

Either she grew up here or spent a fair amount of time here. So she's kind of excited about the possibility. So let's close out with some considerations. Always good to encourage innovation rather than, you know, trying to prescribe content as you're using definitions. Problem disorder, gambling, compulsive gambling, gambling addiction.

Let's just try to all get on the same page about what, what we mean by that. I think it's really important, as you consider eventually, if this moves forward, who is going to be running this facility. You know, their track record is really important. And do they have. They worked in multiple jurisdictions.

And that's important because all the things that I've talked about exist in one form or another. So have they had the interaction on these topics in other places? And I do think, and this probably isn't going to be a problem, but I want to say it anyway.

Investment and engagement, not just responsible gaming, is the most important thing in the world to us. Great. What are you doing about it? Show it to us. Better yet, give the operator an opportunity to show you what they've done. That could be a really interesting opportunity for everyone. I've already said follow the evidence. Enough. Stop. Okay.

Prevention before intervention. You do have an opportunity now before any of this happens, Even if you were to make this a law tomorrow, you still have a few years before anything could possibly happen in that time. Get prevention. Get some prevention strategies developed and implemented.

And again, recognizing there are a lot of folks that can help with that. In order for this to really function well, there has to be some kind of ability to access data. And again, depending on what rules of given departments are, they may be a little squeamish about doing that.

I think to the extent that we have the ability to knock down some walls about that now, that would be great. And this is Something I would love. Obviously, UNLV would love to be involved just as much.

We'd love to see people, folks at the University of Hawaii, come into this family of academics around the United States and around the world and track outcomes. We track them in Nevada. We can tell you how they're doing at six months, how they're doing at nine months, how they're doing in a year.

By the way, treatment and back this up. Relapse is a part of treatment. Treatment that's going to happen. That is not failure on anyone's part. But after six months there's an 80% effective rate and after a year there's over 90% effectiveness rate. So treatment works. There's a journey to get to it, but treatment works.

I think I've already talked about collaborative collaboration. And zero, by the way, on this one, I do think that the industry should be providing some data. And again, I think this relates to what are they seeing, what are they doing, how many interactions have they had? It's important that you know what's going on.

And I think I've said enough about evidence. I'm probably saying it too much. If you're watching this, there is my email address. I'm happy to answer questions directly and obviously I'll answer questions today for many of you. So thank you. Thank you, Alan. Members questions, go ahead.

How do you set the formula of funding programs? Is it a percentage of all wages that are set aside to Fund these programs? And how do you prioritize the different best practices?

I'm a fan of Nevada, partially on this topic. I think that the best thing to do is to take a very small percentage of the total taxes paid, whatever the state collects. When I say a small percentage, we could be talking about 1%, 2%. We're not.

You know, this isn't going to change the state's outcome for doing this, but a small percentage, set that aside in the Fund. I'm of the view because I like the way we do it in Nevada.

There's an advisory Committee and that Committee is made up of community stakeholders, industry stakeholders, the clinical community, the academic community, and it's run by the Department of Health. All of this is done by the Department of Health. So if, for example, as we did, we said, you know what, we haven't really updated the website in 15 years.

It's terrible. We need to get a new one. The state put out an rfp. So we were able to say, here's a need. We as a Committee believe it should be done. The state puts out the rfp, and then we usually have subcommittees who work on some of the details. I think that that is a good formula.

Every state is different. In some cases, they take money out of the General Fund, which is, unfortunately, what we're doing in Nevada right now. And that's a very difficult thing to do because every two years, people like myself have to go back up to the Legislature asking for money, and you end up.

This doesn't change from a funding point of view. So in any event, different states do it different ways. I would urge that it be a small percentage. Get it into a fund where a lot of different stakeholders can have a say, including the Department of Public Health. They're obviously critical.

So every time you need to go back to the ledge to request funding and appropriation for these programs. Have there been instances where it was insufficient amount of funding, to fund.

It depends on what you mean by insufficient. I have chaired this group now 10 years, and, you know, my ethos is treatment first, treatment first and always. Whatever the treatment providers are telling us they're billing, we have to cover that. So that even during COVID they stripped away everything except for the treatment. We were able to save them.

They wanted to go from 1.0 at that time, 1.4 million, down to nothing. And we saved 900,000, and we were able to provide treatment for anyone who needed it. We're now at 2 million. Honestly, I think that it would be very easy for Nevada to go through 5 million a year and have it have meaning.

I mentioned prevalence studies to you. Nevada hasn't had a prevalence study since 1998. Our population has changed just a little. We have no idea what's going on in the community. In Nevada, we can all take guesses.

We also have no idea what's different about the Chinese Cantonese community or the Korean community, which are very significant parts of the mix. In Las Vegas or the Hispanic community, we have very little in Spanish. We have one treatment provider who speaks Spanish.

We have zero who speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, all very important parts of our community. I think if we had the ability to get more detail of what's really happening, it would help our case at the Legislature. But that's kind of the chicken and egg problem that we get into.

I think if you have a percentage first off, if. If there is a baseline study done before anyone has done anything, you'll have an understanding of what's going on right now, and that's important. One more question. Sure.

As other states have come online and have adopted legalized gaming. Where have you seen the most productive framework set of these programs for best practices to get up and running? Because, you know, I see a lot of heavy lifting set in the framework.

I mean, but also there's a lot of benchmarks to look towards other states and best practices.

There are some other states that I think are doing very well. Ohio might be. Ohio or Pennsylvania might be the two that I pick first. As we speak, I have friends in Massachusetts who are screaming at their screens because I'm not mentioning them. Massachusetts has done an awful lot. Really?

Well, they've also done an awful lot that was just overkill. But they needed to do it in order to get it passed. And I get it.

Well, this is so critical. You can't learn by experimentation. You know, you got to hit the ground running.

Yeah. And so I think if you look at Ohio and Pennsylvania, both of which started for nothing, they have lotteries, but lotteries don't deal with this topic.

Yeah, we don't even have a lottery.

Right. So I go there. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Thank you for your presentation. And I'm glad you brought up the fact that we don't have any programs for problem gambling right now, you know, currently in the state.

So the question is, you know, gaming already exists in Hawaii in the form of illegal game rooms, people that go to Vegas or wherever, and also predictive markets. Has there been other jurisdictions that have addressed existing gambling behavior before legislation rolls out?

None that I can think of immediately. In part because funding is hard and for better or worse, these sort of statewide prevalence studies can get pretty expensive. So, no, I don't know that anyone has done it. The closest would be Massachusetts, but that also was sort of funded by the effort that was underway there to have casinos.

And interestingly enough, we're now, I don't know, 12 years into the Massachusetts casino experience, there's been no change. And problem gambling rights, None. So. And they have state supported treatment. They have private treatment insurance companies that are required.

This is also important, insurance companies required to include gambling because otherwise what they'll do is they'll put in for your employees and they'll say, we cover substance use except gambling. So you're leaving people really adrift by doing that.

I have one more question. Have you ever worked with or seen examples of like a responsible gambling program that is geared towards indigenous peoples or that is something like a little bit more culturally based? Because, you know, it's. It's already an issue, you know, and I just want to understand that Absolutely.

There's sensitive. There's a fabulous man named Jacob Coyne who is with the Uaviatom tribe in Southern California, and they operate Yambava and Palms in Las Vegas. And Jacob has worked with colleagues throughout the native community nationally on having the Indian Health Service be in a position to better respond to this.

And the first step of that is understanding the cultural way to respond to it. What's the appropriate thing to do? I have worked with them, full disclosure, so I've done some work with them and know plenty of people who are in other tribal casino operations, but I don't think we're quite there yet.

But it is something that I think would be hugely, hugely helpful for the Native community across the United States is to be able to contextualize this in a way that gives them some comfort in approaching the possibility of entering recovery.

So tribal casinos, like casinos that are run by the tribes, they're the ones implementing these programs or other corporations also implementing programs.

Most of these programs are being implemented. I'm saying most. It's pretty much all tribal and commercial casinos all have responsible gaming programs. What is less clear is what's the real engagement? Yeah, right. Is it that you come up to me and say, hey, do you have any information about gambling?

Counselor friend of mine needs some, and I'm a casino host. And I go, yeah, yeah, hang on. Yeah, it's here somewhere. Hold on a minute. Maybe, you know, that's not having a program. So I think there's great variance in tribal or non tribal. Doesn't matter.

There's great variance in how this gets applied because this is also a cultural issue within the company. Does the company have the sense of responsibility? Right. Tribes do. That's. Tribes are different. And so that's part of what is driving Jacob's work. And he's fabulous. Appreciate it. Thank you.

All right, let's go to Zoom. Is there any Members wanting to ask a question in Zoom? Just take a second. All right, let's go back here. Any questions?

Thank you, Chair. Alan. So I was thinking, I don't know the answer to this. I'm skeptical about asking it anyway. But, you know, Vegas gaming is so prolific, it's in every supermarket, grocery store, the convenience stores. There's slot machines, video poker machines everywhere you go.

Do you see a higher prevalence of problem gaming in Las Vegas or Nevada generally than you would in another jurisdiction? Or maybe I asked this in a different way. Does access correlate with increased problem gaming?

Okay, so there are two questions there. Does access correlate to Problem gambling? No. The only time it does is when. Bear with me for a second. Hawaii. When you think there's no gambling going on at all, and then a casino comes and someone raises their hand and says, bam. A problem gambling.

Well, when you're actually talking to the individual, you're going to find out since they were a kid, chances are their parents introduced them to gambling. So. But there have been studies that have tried to say, yes, there is a correlation at this moment in American history.

I think every one of you has a casino sitting in front of you. So I don't know that it can be said that there's no gambling or people aren't exposed. I think they're completely exposed. Exposed. Is the rate higher in Nevada? It is slightly, but that information is from 1998.

I really like to get back to what it is now. It is possible, and there have been some national studies, that the rate of harm among casino employees is a little higher than it is in the General population. And that's been replicated enough that I think that's true.

What I don't know is whether or not now years and years and years of experience has brought that more, because this kind of phenomenon, you know, at first it has a bit of a rise, and then adapt to what Howard Schaefer at Harvard called the adaptation model, and they return to their normal behavior. So I don't.

I don't know where we are in Nevada right now. I'd be dishonest telling you that I. And I'll look for your support at the Legislature when we ask for.

Hello? Hello. Is there any others who has not asked a question? Anyone in Zoom? Okay. All right. Go ahead,

Darrin Sato. I just have a quick question.

Go ahead, Darrin.

Besides gambling, are there any other mental health increases that could happen in gambling, such as depression, anxiety, suicide, those types of issues? Thank you.

So if you're asking if those things are tied to gambling, the answer is it isn't measurable. And by the way, some of those things may have been the underlying cause of the problem with gambling in the first place. So this is literally a chicken and an egg.

If you are a very depressed person for whatever reason, a spouse has passed, you lost a job, you're getting divorced, and you decide to seek refuge in a casino, that's a warning sign. That's a problem.

And it's the kind of thing that especially casinos where they're in local markets where they're dealing with the same people all the time, day after day, you talk to them, you can actually begin to understand what's going on in their lives.

And you may be able to intercede not because they have a problem with their money, but because this may not be the place to be right now, you know, while you're grieving over your spouse. But as to marked increases in any of these mental health issues, no, I don't think we've seen anything of note.

Darrin, did you have any follow ups?

No, no, not. Not really. I guess the only other question I have which is unrelated to this is like you had eloquently said, we don't really have any programs or certified gambling therapists right now in the state.

What would your estimate be for us to get that up and running so that if we do decide to have a type of gambling in Hawaii, that we would be ready for that? Thank you.

I am not fully expert in this, that this is a question for gambling certification team, but I'm going to take a stab and say six months for someone who's already a substance user, it's different. If you're just starting out, you have your social worker degree and you want to become a therapist, then that's different.

That's still going to be. I don't know what it is here, but often it's a year or two to get that fully in place. What you can do now is two things. Now you can take advantage of the substance use counselors you have, and I think you can bring them up to speed reasonably quickly.

And anyone who is currently looking to start down the path of being a therapist, this becomes part of their training. You actually aren't adding on to it in any measurable way. It's just part of what they do.

Thank you. No other questions. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. Any others wanting to ask a question in zoom? All right, we'll start our second round. Go ahead.

One final question. Was there any particular form of gaming that statistically seems to have more a tendency for problem gamblers than others?

No, no. It's more about the environment, I think, than it is the game. The more you're gambling in isolation without friends, I think that's. That in and of itself is problematic. Doesn't mean you have something that is discernible as gambling disorder. But that's just not. That's not being. Remember I said the industry wants healthy players.

That's not being health coached. Dr. Dillon's question of Beau, he asked about whether or not gambling generates happiness even when you lose. I think Beau's exactly right. We are both avid Vegas Golden Knight fans and we both hate it when they lose, but okay, I lost.

We're going to come back and be excited for the next game and you keep on going. It's part of the experience. I think that what, what hasn't been done is we haven't been able to measure it yet. There just is. And part of this is because Federal Government for decades has excluded gambling from federal research monies.

So they will have $8 billion for drugs, 5 billion for alcohol, zero for gambling. It's specifically excluded. So you don't have that kind of ability to do really in depth, sociological and behavior. Because I think we're going to find out that it's the experience that you have after you've purchased the ticket when you're betting on sports.

It's the experience you have then when you're at a sports book, when you're at home, when you're at wherever you go to watch games with your buddies and you're yelling at one another. And you know this, I, I took heads for the, for the coin toss. zero, you're an idiot. You should have taken whatever.

That's part of that, the experience that Bo speaks of. And I can tell you, and I'm just one person, it's anecdotal, all honesty, I have wagered as much as $100 on the Super bowl by taking 10 of these crazy prop bets just because it made it more interesting. The games are usually terrible.

So at least that, you know, at least you have that, you know, is the first score going to be a field goal, whatever, you know, whatever it may be. And I sometimes don't cash the tickets because it wasn't about the 20 cents I'm going to win on my ten dollar bet about who was going to score first.

It was about the experience of being around other people and talking about it and that socialization is part of healthy gambling.

All right, Any other questions?

I have a question.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your presentation and bringing your expertise to the podium. I just have 11 question.

You know, in the rehabilitation process you have, you have programs that are already established and you said in some cases it may take six months and I'm sure there's a curriculum. Is that something you can share with the Committee so we can get a better hand, better handle and it can be a generic one.

Well, I can. What I'm happy to provide the Committee is the work that we do at the institute tracking those players that's reported on every year.

And I think that's important to understand what that journey kind of looks like over time what I'm not as capable of doing but there are those who can is give you an idea of what the recovery the standard recovery process is like and that is almost always a six week intensive daily program and then after that usually it rotates to once a week then this is with a therapist then over time going to GA meetings going going to church whatever works for the individual and you know just check ins maybe monthly with with the counselor what goes on in those six weeks I can't detail that for.

Him I will be satisfied with what the most that you can share with me True just so we can get a soft hand on it computer do not happy to do that. Thank you.

All right any other questions and last call in Zoom. All right well Alan thank you for your presentation thank you thank you. Thank you for being here this hearing is now adjourned.