Ex-control board member Siller reflects on making the system work

Bobby Siller was chatting with me from his new home in North Carolina with a view of a river so wide “you’d swear you’re on a cruise ship.”

He and his wife, Tina, have long dreamed of living on the waterfront, and the couple settled on Elizabeth City, considered one of the 100 best small towns in America. It’s low in crime and high in per capita income, number of physicians, public school expenditure per pupil and proportion of college-educated residents. Elizabeth City is practically the antithesis of Las Vegas, where the retired FBI agent and former Gaming Control Board member lived for the past 12 years.

Siller was the most outspoken member of the control board from 1999 to 2006, and maybe too outspoken for his own long-range job prospects.

While other gaming regulators with law enforcement backgrounds often moved on to jobs in the gaming industry after the one-year cooling-off period, the big boys didn’t reach out to Siller. Others who ended their FBI law enforcement careers in Las Vegas made a smooth transition into working for the gaming industry. Not Siller.

He thought he would be sought as a board member or compliance officer.

“I felt I had a lot to offer these corporations,” he said. “I thought I would be more in demand.”

I remember sitting in hearings where he would ask tough questions of CEOs and thinking: “He’ll never get a job there.”

Siller, who is black and for 25 years fought his own diversity issues in the FBI, challenged the gaming industry about its lack of diversity in the work force and in management.

One of his standard questions to CEOs was: What are you doing personally to encourage diversity? He believes his questions produced results.

“I’m proud of how the industry embraced diversity, especially the MGM and Station Casinos.”

He wasn’t shut out, he just didn’t get as many offers as he thought he would. Perhaps he was naive about what happens when you challenge CEOs with big egos.

Siller joined the board and compliance committee of WMS Industries, a leading slot machine maker based in Illinois. But he would like to have another board position. At 63, he still wants to work.

My view: He was tough on gaming, and the industry leaders held it against him.

His view: “I didn’t feel I was tough, I felt I was consistent and fair. I tried to do the right thing. … I asked what was in the best interest of Nevada and the public, and I took that very seriously when it came to making a final decision.”

He pushed hard to bring Pansy Ho forward for suitability when she was to be the Macau partner for MGM Mirage. She was approved but not before she had to disclose her finances and defend her independence from her father, Stanley Ho, who couldn’t get approved in Nevada because of questionable associations.

“With Pansy Ho, all I wanted was for the system to do what it did, to put the facts on the table,” Siller said. “My intent was to make sure the system works.”

When Tim Poster and Tom Breitling wanted to buy the Golden Nugget in 2004 from the MGM Mirage, Siller grilled Poster about mob connections before voting to recommend licensing … but for one year only. A year later, Siller said he had no licensing problems with the dot.com duo, but by then, they were selling the property for a healthy profit.

When the Hard Rock started pushing the envelope with its sexy ads, Siller spoke out publicly. Quietly, he blocked topless clubs from even applying for gaming licenses for slot machines, saying it was unsuitable because of drugs and prostitution common at such clubs.

His critics said he was too rigid, but I never heard anyone say Siller wasn’t honest.

Siller was emphatic that he didn’t leave Las Vegas with any bad feelings toward the gaming industry.

“I didn’t leave bitter, I left to fulfill a dream,” he said.

Somehow Bobby Siller’s view of the waterfront in North Carolina seems more pleasant and less stressful than the dominant view of the Strip these days, the depressing view of the shell of Echelon, which will remind us of lost jobs while it stagnates for at least a year.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.