Challenge and Intrigue Surround Small-Market Gaming Coverage

When Rick Alm started covering the gaming industry for The Kansas City Star in 1993, only a handful of states had legalized casino gambling, and few media outlets paid much attention to the industry.

Now, more than 30 states have some form of casino gambling, numerous poker games are televised and many more reporters are writing and producing pieces about the industry.

Despite its emergence, though, one thing hasn't changed: Few local news outlets outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City make local gaming enough of a priority to employ a reporter to cover it full time.

Those who do cover that beat say they consider it to be challenging and intriguing as they continue to break new business reporting ground.

They hail from papers and business journals in Kansas City; Memphis; Baton Rouge, La.; Hartford, Conn. and others near nascent casino industries that have made the business of gambling part of their daily local coverage.

That wasn't always the case.

After Missouri legalized casino gambling in November 1992, Alm, who has been with The Star for 26 years, started covering the industry by reporting on daily court battles, financial disputes and other issues that seemed more suited for a courts reporter.

Missourians eventually began to accept gambling as part of the state economy. This acceptance allowed Alm to focus more on the business aspects of the industry. He has also enhanced his beat since then to include how tourism is impacted by the presence of casinos.

Now Alm produces a monthly financial report on the industry, regular features on key issues such as the loss limit debate and spot news reports such as a piece about a recent jackpot win.

"Our coverage is from a business point of view and its governmental impact," he says. "We keep it straight that way and don't do hardly any writing at all on stories that encourage gambling."

That can be a tough line for gaming reporters to walk. It's not hard to guess that casino sources usually want positive coverage, says Rick Green, who covers gaming for The Hartford Courant. They steadfastly protect information from reporters seeking to write about other angles.

That is especially true of the two major Indian casinos that Green covers in Connecticut. They employ about 20,000 people and contribute $500 million into the state's economy annually.

Although these casinos "have a substantial impact on Connecticut," Green says, many state residents are still not familiar with gambling as an industry. This presents another challenge to Green and helps shape his coverage by making it more reader-friendly. He has a lot of freedom to pick what to write about, but that carries a heavy responsibility.

"You write about stuff that readers aren't always familiar with," Green says. So "you have to work hard to keep a human element and people in your stories."

For example, last year Green wrote a feature about how authorities may be ignoring the negative effects that new fast-paced video slots have on gamblers, and another about a study of the health of older gamblers.

But as readers begin to realize the growth of the local gaming industry, that raises a question that is central to its coverage: Are casinos a bad or a good thing for their communities? The ambiguity of that question can drive business of gaming reporters.

"I think it's good for papers to take a harder look," Green says. But "you can do critical coverage without assuming that it's all organized crime."

A similar sense of balance helps shape The Star's gaming coverage. While Alm takes a serious look at the industry, the paper's features department runs a weekly, entertainment-oriented story about amateur poker.

Although Alm and Green both say they'd like to see more papers thoroughly cover the industry, they recognize that business of gaming stories are much more prevalent today than in the past.

"It used to be, to see a casino story (on the news wires) was rare," Alm says. "Ten years ago, there wasn't a story a week. Now there are three to four a day. … It's become huge, huge business in this country and it deserves the coverage it gets."

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism