Al,

There are a couple of arguments to view in this case.

One that was pointed out during our meeting is that there are federal and/or state laws that say casino chips are to be used for gaming purposes only. Making casino chips for the purpose of collecting is against the law. Granted, a lot of casinos push the envelope. But much of it can be justified when limited edition chips are placed on gaming tables. They are gaming chips that just happen to commemorate an event or a person.

That's how the LE boom started. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, GCB didn't crack down on it right away. As human nature has proven time and time again, an inch became a mile and the production of LE's became an obvious violation of policy. A violation that was repeatedly brought to the attention of GCB by unhappy customers. We've all been given opportunities in the past where we took advantage of them until they jumped up and bit us.

The First Amendment argument doesn't fly in this case. Are you familiar with the Ralph Englestadt (Imperial Palace) fiasco? Ralph was an admirer of Adolph Hitler and had a Hitler memorabilia room in the IP. He held annual parties on or around Hitler's birthday - although they were not parties to celebrate Hitler, said Ralph. This is America, a man should be able to throw a private party whenever he wants, shouldn't he? Welcome to Nevada. All casinos in Nevada must be granted a license by the NV GCB. It is not a right to own or operate a casino, it is a privilege. And if one wants to be granted the privilege of owning a casino, they must adhere to the policies of the GCB. No one has a right to go against the policies that were in place when they agreed to abide by them. Just ask Ralph. He was fined several million dollars and removed his Hitler memorabilia from casino property.

My thoughts are that if Ralph, with his team of attorneys and hundreds of millions of dollars, didn't "have the guts" to go up against GCB, then we probably don't stand a chance on our unhappiness with their policy regarding LE's.

Personally, I was very happy with the results of the meeting. I certainly don't look at GCB as an evil, Orwellian entity that enforces policies at whim. The two representatives we met with were very pleasant, sincere, and open to discussion. They asked our opinions on issues regarding chips and listened to our concerns. There's a time and a place to have an "Us against Them" approach and a time to work together. As you stated, the former would be suicide. I'm confident the next and future officers of our Club will be able to work together with GCB to represent us as a group that is determined to preserve gaming history.

Tyrus