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Seasoned attorney Bob Faiss began practicing gaming law at a time when there was virtually no recognition of it as a distinct area of practice. He has represented the gaming industry in the state Legislature for about 35 years.
In the 1960s, he worked for the Nevada Gaming Commission as well as with Nevada Gov. Grant Sawyer during the period when mobster influence on Las Vegas gaming was reaching a crescendo. The national news media and the federal government largely perceived "Sin City" as a haven for the underworld. Faiss helped Sawyer, a mentor he greatly respected, bring a more orderly process to the gaming industry.
Faiss also worked as a staff assistant for President Johnson 'during the late Texan's last year in the Oval Office. Faiss has worked for Lionel Sawyer & Collins - Nevada's most prestigious law firm - since 1973 when he began his legal career. He is chair of Lionel Sawyer & Collins' gaming and regulatory law department and also a member of its executive committee.
Before his legal career began, Faiss worked as a journalist for two years in the late 1950s, including some time as city editor of the Las Vegas Sun before getting his law degree from American University in Washington, D.C.
It was Sawyer who asked him to go into law, a request Faiss quickly granted because of who was asking.
Now one of the world's foremost authorities on gaming law, Faiss was named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal in 1996. He also has received the Lifetime Achievement Award in gaming law from the Nevada Gaming Attorneys and the University of Nevada Las Vegas' International Gaming Institute.
An adjunct professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV, Faiss currently lectures and writes about gaming law.
Q: Do you foresee Internet gaming happening anytime in the state's immediate future?
A: I wouldn't be able to make a prediction. We are at the center of the gaming universe. International companies are quartered here and the gaining control system is the most respected in the world.
Internet gaming is going to be in the hands of a United States Congress. To work, the laws are going to...