Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

Development of the Gaming Industry
147
long ago, their first quarter of 1978 was down
in profit even though their gross was up—cost
of doing business. So, that’s about it on taxes.
How would you deal with allegations of
skimming?
Well, you haven’t heard of any lately. You
see, the state of Nevada changed their laws,
and insofar as the count itself is concerned—
and like ourselves here, I can tell you how we
do it. We count all three shifts every twentyfour
hours. As a matter of fact, if you’d like to
watch sometime, you’re more than welcome
to come up. The state requires you to count
at a certain time every day. And, the key that
opens the boxes is put in a safe deposit box.
It has two keys—I or my partner each have
one key; the cashier’s cage has the other key.
It’s signed in and out once a day, and that’s
when the count—. Now the head cashier has
to come up to the counting room with me; we
both put our key in this safety deposit box,
and then we can open it to get out the key
that opens the boxes.
Then when I count, they have a regulation
whereby only one partner that has a five
percent vested interest or over, can be in the
count; and then you must have a verifier from
the cashier’s cage, or I may take a man from
the slot machine department or my restaurant
manager or even a dealer. When I say even
a dealer I’m not saying this in a derogatory
sense, but I may take a dealer off the table
and bring him up and count the money. I
personally never touch the money, unless it’s to
verify the hundred dollar bills. In other words
they’ll count them down, and then I will reverify
that that’s the amount of bills that’s there.
Other than that all I do is put down figures on
the sheet and watch. All these other people—it
could be anybody in the count— can come in
there, and handle the money. And all I do is
watch, and then I put the figures down that
they give me. And that’s the way a count is
done, so consequently I would have to—and
the key that’s in there, in the lock box, one lock
shop has the combination of that key, and they
are honor bound not to make another key for
this count room unless they notify the Gaming
Commission.
So consequently there’s one key for the
boxes that open the games. And this is the
way that the Gaming Commission wants it
done. And, in other words, like my partner
and myself, we both own twenty percent. Well,
the two of us cannot be in that count room at
the same time—only one—and all the rest are
people who have no vested interested in the
place. So therefore, it would be very foolish
for me to take four other people and say, “Now
let’s skim.” Of course number one, they would
want a cut of it, and number two, you may
have to fire that person sometime. And then
they in turn would go and say, “Well, he made
me do it, and I want to confess to everything
now,” and so on and so forth. So you see, you
don’t leave yourself open to anything like that.
So, and again, it’s like I said, square
gambling is the strongest thing in the world;
and if you can’t make a living at it, a legitimate
living at it, well, then you don’t belong in the
business. Like I said, years ago when things
were tough, why you had to take, what we
call, take an edge here and there to be able
to exist; but these are things of the past. And
many years ago I suppose it was skimming
going on. In all my experience in the gaming
business, I was never a part of anything like
that, never had to be, simple as that. Probably
people did, probably people were caught at it,
but we’re audited just about every three years
from the gaming Commission and then the
Internal Revenue and so on and so forth. And
I’ve been in this business for a long, long time.
So, that’s about all I can tell you about it.