Indy Gaming: Longtime MGM spokesperson’s three-decade journey to the Hall of Fame

The first time I met Alan Feldman was when he gave me a tour of The Mirage roughly 10 days before the Strip resort opened in November 1989. Thirty-four years later, we reminisced about the property and our lives in Las Vegas just ahead of the resort’s closing last week.

My friend is being inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. I couldn’t be more pleased that he is receiving this honor.

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Alan Feldman oversaw corporate communications across the openings of nearly a dozen well-known casino resorts in five states and Macau over the last four decades. During much of that time, he was the chief spokesman for MGM Resorts International, one of the largest public casino companies.

However, the work he accomplished in the last 10 years on programs and policies surrounding responsible gaming is the reason he is one of the three newest Gaming Hall of Fame inductees.

Feldman, 65, said he doesn’t know who nominated him for inclusion in the hall’s membership, which is overseen by the American Gaming Association (AGA), but said “I need to send them a thank you note.”

He was at home playing with his granddaughter when AGA CEO Bill Miller phoned him with the news.

“I thought he wanted to discuss some responsible gaming matters,” Feldman said last week at The Mirage, where he was participating in the closing ceremonies for the Strip resort almost three decades after helping open the property.

Feldman will be inducted into the hall at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas in early October alongside Hard Rock Entertainment Chairman/Seminole Gaming CEO Jim Allen and Debi Nutton, an Everi Holdings board member and a former casino operations executive with MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts.

Reflecting on the hall’s list of more than 160 individuals and groups, Feldman saw a dozen names of those he worked with, including the former leadership at MGM Resorts: founder Kirk Kerkorian, former Chairman and CEO Terrence Lanni and former Chairman and CEO Jim Murren, who was inducted last year.

Feldman paused for a moment of reflection after seeing Burton Cohen’s name. The late gaming executive managed some of the Strip’s most iconic resorts and was a person Feldman greatly admired. Late gaming attorney Bob Faiss and Wynn Resorts general counsel Ellen Whittemore, who previously did legal work for MGM, also stuck out.

“It truly is an honor,” he said. “These are people, in my mind, whose accomplishments made them deserving of being in the Hall of Fame. I don't have that feeling about myself.”

Feldman is the hall's first member to come from the corporate communications/public relations side of the gaming industry. However, the statement from the AGA highlighted Feldman’s later career work on responsible gaming matters — which was long defined as problem gambling.

His efforts have helped increase the casino industry’s knowledge and regulatory practices toward responsible gaming, including bringing GameSense into MGM Resorts — a program developed by the British Columbia Lottery that promotes healthy gambling behaviors at all MGM properties.

The location for our interview at an empty Mirage gaming table was fitting given that Feldman came to Las Vegas in 1989 from the Los Angeles office of Hill & Knowlton, an international communications firm that was hired to assist in the opening. Feldman worked directly with Steve Wynn and Elaine Wynn in the messaging surrounding the property — the first all-new Strip resort built in more than a decade at a then-unheard-of cost of $630 million.

The opening brought worldwide attention to Las Vegas. Following the opening, he was asked to remain with the company, then known as Golden Nugget Resorts. Feldman never moved back to Los Angeles.

During his tenure, Golden Nugget became Mirage Resorts and Feldman oversaw communications for the openings of Treasure Island, Bellagio and Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi. After Mirage Resorts was sold to MGM Grand Corp. in 2000 for $6.4 billion , Feldman stayed on with the newly christened  MGM Mirage Corp.

He oversaw communications when MGM opened casinos in Atlantic City, Detroit and Massachusetts; bought Mandalay Resort Group for $7.9 billion in 2005 and unveiled the $9 billion CityCenter development in 2009. He also helped reopen Beau Rivage in 2006 after a yearlong closure to repair damages from Hurricane Katrina.

After retiring from the company in 2019, Feldman joined UNLV’s International Gaming Institute as director of strategic initiatives and a distinguished fellow in responsible gaming. He is also chairman emeritus of the International Center for Responsible Gaming.

“While I’m very proud of the work I did on the corporate communications side, I believe (the selection committee) is acknowledging responsible gaming,” Feldman said. “We know that we need to get the industry to embrace it yet further. There’s this entire world of online sports betting that we need to understand better. So there's a lot of work to be done that I’m very excited about.”

Canceled flights at Reid minimal compared to the rest of the country

The number of canceled flights at Harry Reid International Airport dropped off considerably by Tuesday afternoon following a weekend in which airline travel worldwide saw numerous delays and cancellations amid a worldwide tech outage that began Friday.

According to FlightAware.com , an airport and airline tracking service, the number of canceled flights at Reid as of 2 p.m. Tuesday was 17, roughly 2 percent of all inbound or outbound flights scheduled. The figure was down from 54 canceled flights Monday, or 5 percent of flights to and from Reid.

According to FlightAware, Southwest Airlines — Reid Airport’s largest air carrier — was not affected by the software glitch. The airline, which accounts for almost 35 percent of the airport’s passenger volume, had just two cancellations during the weekend nationwide, according to FlightAware.

According to The Associated Press , Delta Airlines and its Delta Connection partners canceled about 500 flights Tuesday by midday on the East Coast, accounting for about two-thirds of all cancellations in the U.S.

Delta is Reid’s third busiest air carrier.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced an investigation Tuesday into how Delta is treating passengers amid the outage.

SuperBook Sports ends operations in eight states, will focus only on Nevada

The online sports betting business SuperBook, tied to one of the Strip’s largest sportsbooks inside Westgate Las Vegas, is ending its operations in eight states and will focus solely on its Nevada business.

In a statement Friday night posted on the social media platform X , Las Vegas-based SuperBook said it was shutting down its mobile sports wagering operations in Colorado, New Jersey, Arizona, Tennessee, Ohio, Iowa, Maryland and Virginia.

The company will continue its sports betting business at the 30,000-square-foot SuperBook at Westgate, along with its mobile sports betting business in Nevada.

The company did not provide a reason for its market exit and said customers were asked to withdraw the money from their accounts. The company’s media relations staff did not respond to emailed questions from The Nevada Independent .

SuperBook, which opened in the mid-1980s, was one of the first sports betting operations in Las Vegas to attract national media attention during high profile events, such as the Super Bowl.

SuperBook operations included a retail sportsbook in Black Hawk, Colorado, that closed a few months ago and a sports bar-style facility outside Camden Yards — home of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles — that had sports betting kiosks.

However, it now joins a growing list of Nevada-based sports betting operators, including WynnBet and SaharaBet, to close their businesses outside of the state amid a highly competitive sports betting industry.

The top four sports betting providers — DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and Caesars Sports — often combine for 80 percent to 90 percent of the wagers and revenue in the states where they operate, making the market a challenge for smaller companies such as SuperBook. DraftKings and FanDuel do not operate in Nevada.

SuperBook began its expansion efforts shortly after sports betting was legalized in the U.S. in 2018, but the effort slowed as the market grew crowded.

In an interview with The Nevada Independent in May 2023, SuperBook’s top executive Jay Kornegay said the business built a database of U.S. customers who visited the Las Vegas sportsbook since its inception.

“We decided to look at this as an opportunity to expand the SuperBook brand,” he said at the time.

What I'm reading

Column: MLB players with Vegas roots skeptical of A’s relocation: ‘It’s a terrible idea’ — Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times

Several players, including Bryce Harper, said they would prefer an expansion team that could create a history of its own, such as the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.

Advantages of free play to casinos overstated, according to recent study — Rege Behe, CDC Gaming Reports

UNLV hospitality college professor says free play offered to customers isn’t bad, but the casino industry isn’t doing a very good job of measuring it.

Nassau County residents, leaders protest plans to build giant casino — Tanya Rivero, ABC7 - New York

Las Vegas Sands continues to run into opposition regarding its proposed resort and casino complex from residents in the Long Island community.

News, notes and quotes

Another glowing review for Full House Resorts’ new Colorado property

“We believe [the] property can ultimately grow the Cripple Creek market. The property will eventually be a market leader and attract new customers to the region, evidenced by the better-than-expected catchment of Denver-area visitors.”

• In a research note from Colin Mansfield, gaming analyst, CBRE Credit Research

Entain appoints longtime gaming executive Gavin Isaacs as CEO

Gavin Isaacs, who was elected to the Gaming Hall of Fame in 2022, has been named CEO of London-based Entain Plc., the 50-50 joint venture partner with MGM Resorts International of sports betting operator BetMGM. Isaacs was CEO of Scientific Games for two years and was a top executive with Bally Technologies, Shuffle Master and Aristocrat.

• Press release from Entain Plc.

California sports betting effort could launch in 2026

“The expansion of gaming is going to happen. It’s a matter of when, not where. But when that does happen, tribes will remain in control in California. We’ll partner with companies, we’ll utilize their products, but again, tribes are the operators in California.”

• James Siva, vice chairman, Morongo Band of Mission Indians, in gaming journalist Steve Ruddock’s S traight to the Point newsletter