Casino Tycoons for McCain

They don't just support McCain. McCain supports them. He loves to gamble. For real.
These tycoons are worried that if Obama wins, they might not make as much money. 

CBS: And the handful of tycoons, who control the gambling industry, are playing an unprecedented role: putting all their money behind Sen. John McCain in Nevada, a key battleground state.

McCain's Vegas team of five includes billionaires Sheldon Adelson, of Las Vegas Sands and longtime Democrat Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts. They're acting as "bundlers," mega-fundraisers who, critics say, get special access.

One of their posh events last June carried a $1,000 ante; $10,000 got donors into a VIP reception with McCain; and $33,000 bought access to an even more exclusive reception.

The casino bosses wouldn't talk to us, so we got the scoop from Ray Poirier, of "Gaming Today."

Is America Addicted to Gambling?

We know that John McCain likes to roll the dice, both in and out of the casinos and with other people's money, so to speak, but so does -- did -- Wall Street.

Poynter: We are a gambling, risk-taking culture, perhaps a product of our frontier origins, where greed overcomes any vestige of Puritan temperance. I've not seen a discussion of how gambling has consumed us in the context of the catastrophic risk-taking that has led America to the brink of economic disaster.

America is addicted to gambling. Let us count the ways:
State lotteries have been used more and more to fund essential government services, such as education. If you don't think lotteries penalize the poor, go to a 7-Eleven sometime and check out who is purchasing tickets.
Casino gambling, much of it related to Native American tribes, has spread from places such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City to all corners of the country, including the Bible-thumping South.
Poker -- especially Texas Hold 'em -- has become a television sport on ESPN and other cable channels. Online gambling, along with pornography, is one of the few businesses to make huge profits through the Internet.
The World Series of Poker is attracting younger and younger gamblers, many of whom learned their trade online as high school students.
Fantasy sports leagues have changed the way people, especially men, view sporting events, not through the lens of their favorite team, but through the success of individual players they have drafted onto their virtual team.
Sports gambling is huge in America. Oddsmakers advertise on sports radio programs, and almost every newspaper I know publishes the betting odds in agate type. An NBA referee is in prison for point shaving.
But what has this to do with Wall Street, you may ask. Read on. 

McCain Likes to Gamble - In Las Vegas Too

We've all seen how much McCain likes to gamble. I didn't realize that he's into all forms of gambling, or as they say in Vegas, gaming. I guess with 7 houses and 11 cars, it's easy to come up with some gambling money.

NYT: In May 2007, as Mr. McCain’s presidential bid was floundering, he spent a weekend at the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas strip. A fund-raiser hosted by J. Terrence Lanni, the casino’s top executive and a longtime friend of the senator, raised $400,000 for his campaign. Afterward, Mr. McCain attended a boxing match and hit the craps tables.

For much of his adult life, Mr. McCain has gambled as often as once a month, friends and associates said, traveling to Las Vegas for weekend betting marathons. Former senior campaign officials said they worried about Mr. McCain’s patronage of casinos, given the power he wields over the industry. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We were always concerned about appearances,” one former official said. “If you go around saying that appearances matter, then they matter.”

The former official said he would tell Mr. McCain: “Do we really have to go to a casino? I don’t think it’s a good idea. The base doesn’t like it. It doesn’t look good. And good things don’t happen in casinos at midnight.”

“You worry too much,” Mr. McCain would respond, the official said.

Here's more:

As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.

“One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a leading Indian gambling expert, called Mr. McCain.

As factions of the ferociously competitive gambling industry have vied for an edge, they have found it advantageous to cultivate a relationship with Mr. McCain or hire someone who has one, according to an examination based on more than 70 interviews and thousands of pages of documents.

Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as “birds of prey.” Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.

McCain hangs with Las Vegas titans. Sig Rogich loves McCain:

But he has rarely wavered in his loyalty to Las Vegas, where he counts casino executives among his close friends and most prolific fund-raisers. “Beyond just his support for gaming, Nevada supports John McCain because he’s one of us, a Westerner at heart,” said Sig Rogich, a Nevada Republican kingmaker who raised nearly $2 million for Mr. McCain at an event at his home in June.

Only six members of Congress have received more money from the gambling industry than Mr. McCain, and five hail from the casino hubs of Nevada and New Jersey, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics dating back to 1989. In the presidential race, Senator Barack Obama has also received money from the industry; Mr. McCain has raised almost twice as much.

The McCain camp won't answer back on this story. You might want to give the whole thing a read.