September 28, 2008
McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry
By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
NY Times

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes
gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100
chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around
2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands
of dollars in winnings.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps
table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000
presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s
evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a
casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee,
and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino,
according to three associates of Mr. McCain.

The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for
the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr.
McCain’s campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world’s second-largest
casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s current campaign
manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain’s
affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built
with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career
in Congress.

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.

When rules being considered by Congress threatened a California tribe’s
planned casino in 2005, Mr. McCain helped spare the tribe. Its lobbyist,
who had no prior experience in the gambling industry, had a nearly
20-year friendship with Mr. McCain.

In Connecticut that year, when a tribe was looking to open the state’s
third casino, staff members on the Indian Affairs Committee provided
guidance to lobbyists representing those fighting the casino, e-mail
messages and interviews show. The proposed casino, which would have cut
into the Pequots’ market share, was opposed by Mr. McCain’s colleagues
in Connecticut.

Mr. McCain declined to be interviewed. In written answers to questions,
his campaign staff said he was “justifiably proud” of his record on
regulating Indian gambling. “Senator McCain has taken positions on
policy issues because he believed they are in the public interest,” the
campaign said.

Mr. McCain’s spokesman, Tucker Bounds, would not discuss the senator’s
night of gambling at Foxwoods, saying: “Your paper has repeatedly
attempted to insinuate impropriety on the part of Senator McCain where
none exists — and it reveals that your publication is desperately
willing to gamble away what little credibility it still has.”