Spectrum Gaming Group has marshaled an impressive array of resources to provide bondholders, bank lenders, investment bankers, creditors, buyers of existing properties and incumbent management with an independent, outside-the-box expertise to evaluate critical financial, legal regulatory and operational issues. We provide a wide variety of casino-related services, all of which share a common goal: to provide our clients with the best possible advice to help meet their strategic objectives or improve the financial performance of the business. Our expertise can be used to facilitate a restructuring, turnaround or acquisition of a business.

Spectrum has recognized expertise and credibility in Internet gaming, and in the critical related areas of law-enforcement and gaming regulation. Indeed, we take pride in our growing reputation for our foresight in identifying the challenges and opportunities to be faced in the evolution of online gaming.

When projections and impacts count, count on Spectrum Gaming Group. Developers and investors have relied on Spectrum to determine the feasibility of building multibillion-dollar projects on the Las Vegas Strip, as well as in Atlantic City and Macau. We have worked in dozens of other markets around the world, from Pennsylvania to Vietnam, and from Louisiana to Canada. Wall Street repeatedly turns to Spectrum when weighing gaming investments of hundreds of millions of dollars. Our clients know that our reports are conservative in their projections and comprehensive in their approach. We combine quantitative and qualitative analyses that result in a thorough, independent and reliable analysis. Spectrum stands out in this field because we combine reliability and transparency with a comprehensive approach that includes assessing political and competitive risks. Our economic services include:

• Feasibility studies
• Market analyses
• Reasonableness tests

Spectrum principals have been studying the impacts of gaming for three decades, and indeed we take pride in pioneering this particular discipline.

Each Spectrum project is customized to our client’s specific requirements and developed from the ground up. Our findings, conclusions and recommendations are based solely on our research, analysis and experience. While any reputable firm will use such quantitative models as REMI or RIMS, Spectrum extends far beyond such required standards. Our economic-impact studies stand out for several key reasons:

• We spend considerable research meeting with a variety of crucial stakeholders, from legislators and regulators to small business owners and labor leaders, among others.
• We recognize that economic impacts are not static, and that the impacts can differ based on public policies. Where appropriate, we will recommend policies that could enhance the economic benefits and minimize the negative impacts.
• Spectrum approaches all such studies with a combination of candor and experience. We analyze impacts as they are – or could be. We never tailor our findings to benefit a client.

Government agencies and regulatory commissions routinely engage Spectrum Gaming Group for myriad services when introducing or expanding casino gambling. Spectrum’s team of former regulators, enforcement agents and attorneys collectively has decades of experience in all aspects of regulation.

The Spectrum team has extensive regulatory experience dating back three decades in the opening of casinos. Many members of the team – who had the privilege of serving as regulators for the state of New Jersey – played key roles in the opening of Atlantic City casinos. Spectrum has also been retained to open casinos on behalf of state and tribal regulators, having performed such engagements in West Virginia, Delaware and for the Four Winds Casino in Michigan.

We have evaluated public policy for both the Governor’s office and the House of Representatives in Massachusetts, and for the Connecticut Division of Special Revenue.

We take particular pride in noting that many states and nations that are contemplating casinos will reach out to us to get some candid, professional and independent advice.

Spectrum is the established worldwide leader in providing due diligence investigations regarding a license applicant’s suitability on behalf of casino gaming regulatory authorities. Our firm has conducted numerous complex and sensitive license investigations that have withstood scrutiny and have engendered unbridled public confidence. Since 1993, Spectrum has provided investigative services regarding casino operators and executives, gaming vendors and casino employees. We perform detailed background checks and investigations to provide gaming regulators and operators with the vital information they need to make critical decisions concerning approvals and associations.

Trial attorneys, regulators, prosecutors and gaming operators turn to Spectrum Gaming Group and its decades of experience in areas such as support for criminal prosecution, gaming enforcement, game protection and security. As our knowledge of gaming is unparalleled, so is our value to our clients.

Spectrum executives and associates have decades of casino operational and regulatory experience at senior-management levels in multiple jurisdictions, and are equipped to assist with the major tasks essential to:

• Designing appropriate casino hotel facilities to best serve targeted markets.
• Developing a realistic long-range casino marketing plan; providing adequate and cost effective internal controls and operating procedures.
• Providing the best casino management team for the operation.
• Assuring a smooth and timely opening; and providing operations monitoring on behalf of the Owner for the early years of the casino hotel’s operations.

Spectrum executives and associates have decades of casino operational experience at senior-management levels in multiple jurisdictions. Whether managing the entire gaming operation on an interim basis, gauging guest satisfaction or correcting performance metrics, we can provide solutions to improve your gaming operations.

Spectrum has established a history of working with Tribal Governments and Tribal Gaming Commissions in many ways over the years with the highest degree of integrity, confidentiality and professionalism. Managing Director Fredric Gushin served multiple terms over a 10-year period as a Commissioner with the Oneida Indian Gaming Commission in Verona, NY. Spectrum has been retained by more than 25 Indian Nations to evaluate overall operations of gaming facilities and gaming commissions, perform compliance audits pursuant to the Minimum Internal Control Standards on an outsourced basis, and help focus the tribe’s overall approach to operational and regulatory issues. We have conducted feasibility studies and strategic planning services on behalf of Tribal gaming operating entities and Tribal Governments, and offer an extensive menu of services.

Technology is revolutionizing casino floors around the world, from cashless systems to server-based gaming. Spectrum Gaming Group is continuously positioned at the cutting edge of new technology, providing services for equipment manufacturers, gaming operators and regulators.

Spectrum Gaming Group’s peer-reviewed white paper on gaming tax policy notes in its opening paragraphs: “The legalization of casino gambling is arguably one of the most critical public policy decisions that state lawmakers will make during their tenure. Such legislation authorizes an entirely new industry that offers a wide range of potential impacts. While lawmakers will pay close attention to many facets of the proposed legislation – from the number of casinos to their locations and licensing requirements – few lawmakers pay close attention to what is arguably the most essential aspect of gaming legislation: the tax rate on gross gaming revenue.

“The tax rate on gaming is the most vital public policy decision that legislators will make, as it offers implications in a variety of areas, including:

• Level and type of capital investment
• Employment
• Tourism enhancement
• Demographic and geographic appeal of a casino

“The tax rate will help determine the type of business model that casino operators will pursue, yet it is rarely given the proper level of scrutiny. If anything, decisions related to the tax rate are often based on political considerations. In some cases, the importance of the rate as an engine that will guide long-term policy is simply misunderstood.”

For nearly a decade, Spectrum professionals – due to their background as government officials, as journalists and as operators – have been helping public officials and private operators gain that critical understanding.

Spectrum has worked with the public and private sectors to analyze and craft tax policies to help ensure that casino revenue taxes are designed to best advance public policy. This means policies that encourage capital investment, employment, tourism growth and other policy goals. At the same time, our approach helps states look at gaming through a wide lens by analyzing impacts on all forms of revenue, from employee spending to corporate taxation. Our work has been used in states ranging from New Jersey to Massachusetts to help guide existing and developing tax policies. In November 2010, we presented a peer-reviewed white paper, “Casino Tax Policy: Identifying the Issues that Will Determine the Optimal Rate,” at the National Tax Association 103rd Annual Conference on Taxation, held in Chicago. Thomas A. Garrett, assistant vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, reviewed the report and led a discussion on its findings.

In 2003, Spectrum produced a report that helped educate New Jersey officials as to the potential ramifications of a proposed tax increase on gross gaming revenue for casinos in Atlantic City. Due in large measure to the findings in that report, state officials reconsidered that proposal in light of some potential unforeseen consequences.

Five years later, Spectrum produced a comprehensive report for the governor of Massachusetts (available here) that helped officials there understand the overall revenue implications of their proposed tax policy.

We have worked in various states and nations, from Indiana to Korea, on similar projects.

Our analyses are prized, in large measure, because of their objectivity and credibility. For example, our Massachusetts report was praised in editorials by the competing Boston major newspapers (which rarely agree on anything):

• “The administration ought to revive the proposal to reflect the findings in the independent analysis conducted by Spectrum Gaming.”

  - Boston Herald editorial, August 8, 2008

• “[The Spectrum study] provides each side with plenty of objective analysis to consider. ... The Spectrum study makes the essential point ... The study makes a powerful case ... The report issues another important warning ... The report's authors know all the angles played by casino developers.”

  - Boston Globe editorial, August 15, 2008

  For a copy of our peer-reviewed white paper, send an email request to solutions@spectrumgaming.com or call Managing Director Michael Pollock at 609-926-5100.

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Spectrum Gaming Group is known globally as an authoritative, independent source for understanding trends in gaming. For six years, we have published our Top 21 trends in gaming and for 16 years, we have published the award-winning Gaming Industry Observer, which identifies tracks and analyzes numerous trends.

Now, we marshal our extensive knowledge of political, demographic, technological, regulatory and competitive trends to help position our clients for the future.

Our team bolsters its own unrivaled knowledge by building a team with our strategic partners. These partners have deep knowledge in all relevant areas, from consumer trends to Internet wagering to casino design and utility costs.

This comprehensive service has been designed to assist operators (commercial and tribal), suppliers and investors by customizing an analysis that meets their particular goals, based on their existing assets and positions.

The service includes identifying both opportunities and challenges. For operators and supplies, it starts with an assessment of:

• Where the client is located, geographically and by business model
• Where the clients intends to be in the future

For investors, we perform a similar, customized analysis that starts with assessing their goals as well.

Our skilled team – with decades of experience in government, operations and other disciplines – works side by side with each client to assess those targets, and then develop strategies to achieve the optimal goals.

On a macro level, we review a variety of shifting trends in everything from potential changes in federal and state legislation to the likelihood of Internet gaming and its implications.

On a micro level, we review the in-state and regional competitive landscape, down to the potential economic shifts in any particular market.

We can help you develop anything from a global strategy to a strategy limited to one state or Indian reservation.

Most important, we work with your in-house team by leveraging your existing talent and knowledge to develop a comprehensive, credible plan that gets you to your goals.

The gaming world is changing rapidly, with different forms of gaming converging as technologies, political priorities and player preferences change. Spectrum Gaming Group has worked with numerous state lotteries and related authorities, including agencies in Delaware, West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Georgia and Ohio, to help them analyze where they are, and how to carry out new mandates in this period of rapid change.

We take great pride in the work we perform on behalf of lotteries. Consider what Leon Galls, an independent blogger, wrote about our report for the Georgia Lottery:

“That leaves the Spectrum Group’s study. I thought when I started working through it that it would be just more industry cheerleading. But it wasn’t. It was a sober, professional piece of work full of cautions and qualifications.”

In 2010, Spectrum was honored with a “Governor’s Team Excellence Award” certificate issued by Delaware Gov. Jack Markell for our work in helping to implement table games.

Services for lotteries include:

• Private management advisory work
• Planning properly for the implementation of online gaming, including strategies to assist lottery retailers
• Helping to regulate table games
• Investigating the backgrounds of vendors
• Helping ensure that lotteries are protected as states add new forms of gaming
• Assisting in the establishment of effective, well-regulated Video Lottery Terminals.

As Internet gaming comes closer to reality in the United States, and as lotteries face calls for private management of their operations, they need Spectrum and its suite of services more than ever.

Spectrum is working with the Massachusetts Lottery to help that successful lottery enter online gaming, while still meeting its public mandate and retaining its leadership position among lotteries. Spectrum has also worked with the Georgia Lottery to project revenues from VLTs and to suggest the parameters of an effective regulatory structure. In both Delaware and West Virginia, we helped those two state lotteries add table games to their existing VLT offerings.