Q+A: J. BRIN GIBSON:

Former Gaming Control Board chair talks COVID, virtual reality and life off the board

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J. Brin Gibson

Since stepping down as chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board last year, J. Brin Gibson has stayed busy in Las Vegas as a shareholder at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck law firm.

Vegas Inc sat down with Gibson, who reflected on his time in public service, what he’s been up to since his return to the private sector and his take on the evolution of Nevada gaming.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Talk about the challenges of making decisions regarding health safety during the pandemic and how you responded to that criticism, or whether you would do anything differently.

The governor delegated to the Gaming Control Board everything related to COVID enforcement, and also, he delegated more softly—but delegated sort of indirectly—the vaccination effort. Now, it wasn’t a mandate; it wasn’t a requirement that people need to be vaccinated. Individual properties did various things to incentivize vaccination and so on. But it was never a mandate by the board, and we never took any disciplinary actions as a result of people not being vaccinated.

There was some criticism. There was a lot of sorts of anti-vaccination ethos out there, and some of it showed up in my meetings. There were people who, during the public comment period, would come up. And what we saw during the gubernatorial campaign, as far as vaccinations and so on, some of that played itself out at the beginning of our meetings.

My only problem with all of that is that the board is an apolitical group. We have to be apolitical. We were enforcing the law, as it was decided by the governor, in consultation with the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], with his physician and medical experts, and we did the very best that we could.

In hindsight, would I do anything differently? I’m proud of our efforts. I mean, there were certainly things that I could have done differently—better.

Technology is constantly evolving. How have Nevada casinos and other gaming stakeholders begun implementing newer emerging technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality games into the industry?

Virtual reality and augmented reality—for purposes of our conversation—let’s draw a distinction. So augmented reality might be like Pokemon Go. So, the reality is the individual’s actual, physical reality, and there might be a computer-generated emerald, or token or something that occurs within that environment.

Virtual reality is different, in the sense that it’s an entire virtual experience. Everything is computer-generated. You may have a hand and you can see your hand, but it would be a simulation or computer generation as opposed to an actual hand in an augmented reality sense.

There are certain games that are being played right now in different parts of the world in casinos that we don’t regulate here, that are virtual reality-based games. Where I think we’ll see the first adoption of gambling in the context of virtual reality is probably in the context of esports.

Take World of Warcraft. It’s is an entire world in and of itself. And you now have the option of buying the Oculus goggles, and Apple is going to come out with its own set. And you can use those and have a virtual experience that’s 360 degrees. And everything in it is computer generated. In that context, insofar as esports teams are playing against one another, and there’s allowable wagering on that activity—that would be an example of wagering on or in the context of virtual reality.

In your new role at Brownstein, are you still involved or influential in the gaming industry?

I’m subject to a year cooling-off period. It’s statutory … and it disallows me from appearing in front of the Gaming Commission or Control Board. And that includes reaching into, having conversations with, writing letters to [and] doing work with the agency that I ran and helped develop. So, my influence on Nevada-specific gaming will probably be minimal over the next year.

Is there anything you want to add, or you think people should know?

That was seven and a half years that I spent either as the governor’s general counsel or inside the Attorney General’s office or on the board. And my wife and family sacrificed a great deal for me to do it. And sacrifice is relative, right? I mean, some people might say, ‘Oh, well, the salary, it’s sufficient.’ And it was sufficient. But it’s not what I could have made.

So, there’s opportunity costs associated with it. I gained a lot of experience, but I felt like with my third child entering college, and the demands associated with that, it was time for me to step out and try to take better financial care of my family.

If I had a trust, and I could just do whatever I wanted to do, I would have loved to be a member of the board for as long as I could possibly be. It was a wonderful experience—stimulating, very bright people. You’re on the right side of everything. At least you feel like you are. I enjoyed it.

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This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.

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