Gaming Legacy Unveiled: Glenn E. Wichinsky's Journey Through Family and Fortune in the Casino World

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast. A show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today, we're going to be talking about the gaming industry, as I am joined by Arthur and the gaming and business attorney, Glenn Wyshinski. Glenn is the author of the book, Eight Things Left Unsaid, and he knows both sides of the gaming industry, from the uh personal side to what it is today, Modern Las Vegas. So we're going to be talking to him about this industry that has become so big and got a lot of people participating in today. So, Glenn, welcome to the show. Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Well, I started uh started out in upstate New York in the Catskill Mountains as a child. Uh, made my way to New York and ultimately uh spent most of my childhood in uh the Miami area in South Florida. Um lived a typical lifestyle, you know, middle class home, homework, marching band with a saxophone, do your homework and so on. And um uh my journey started with going to the University of Miami where I was going to become a meteorologist. Uh worked in the National Hurricane Center as an intern. And that was my path, at least that was my chosen path, until my father, who uh lived in Nevada, parents were divorced when I was young, uh convinced me that uh my path in life was to work with him in the gaming industry. So I went from studying hurricane development and watching cloud development into uh slot machines and casinos, which was quite a switch.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, well, I I know your book is uh more than about just the gaming industry, you know, it's about family identity and uh discovering the truth. So at what point did you know that you needed to share your father's story?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Well, about uh five years ago during the pandemic, when we all had uh a lot of time on our hands, I thought it would be a good idea to leave a family memoir for my uh two children. Tell them stories that maybe they didn't know about me, about my life, about our immediate and extended family, and just to have something for posterity to reflect upon someday. Uh that was the intention. Um, and what what changed my direction from just a simple family memoir was that a book came out some years ago by the daughter of a Nevada Gaming Control Board investigator. The book was called Hit Me, and the uh author is a wonderful lady named Daniel Gomes. And Daniel wrote a book about her father, his investigations, his life. And uh usually when I look at books about Las Vegas, because I spent many years out there growing up, and then uh in my adult life, I'd go to the index of a book to see if I recognized any names of people that I had met along the way. And I looked at the back of her book in the index, and I saw my father's name reference, but it wasn't like a one or two-page reference. It actually was a full chapter about him. Uh I went to the chapter, I started reading it. I immediately ran to the checkout counter and bought the book and ran to my car, and I ran I read that that chapter from front to back, maybe 20, 25 pages. And I was just shocked and amazed because I read stories about my father that I never knew. Um he he worked in the gaming industry at the Sant'Hotel and Casino. He was a gaming manufacturer, a slot manufacturer for ballet manufacturing in the 60s and 70s, but I only knew the surface of a story. Um, but after reading what she wrote and then putting together and, you know, connecting the dots in my life of things that just seemed a little bit odd that I didn't truly understand, uh, it became more of a book about not only about my life, but about my father's life. And one that he would never have and could never have written because he once told me that if he ever talked about or wrote about his life, he would need a bulletproof vest.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Well, I know um you grew up uh in the early stages of the uh Nevada gaming industry. So um what are some of the biggest misconceptions that people have about the early days of Nevada gaming and who created it? Because uh people only uh you know only know about it uh through movies.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Right, right. Well, uh, you know, in terms of history, a lot of people think that um organized crime brought gambling to Nevada. Um they developed gambling and and the casinos on the strip and the high-class atmosphere of the hotels and casinos in the 50s and 60s. But uh gambling, legalized gambling was enacted in Nevada actually in 1931. It was at the height of the uh Great Depression, and the state uh legislature and government decided that this would be a means of drawing in revenues that they sorely needed to support their budget and to support the state needs. So gambling was already legalized at an early time. Uh the organized crime families came in in the late 40s, uh, notable people like Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, and many of the family interests from the East Coast and Midwest uh mob families uh had their interests there, invested their monies. And so they developed Las Vegas into what it was known in the early days. Um, and they were very successful at what they did. Um eventually it transformed into a corporate America situation, basically because uh the mob was under a microscope being uh and people being wiretapped by the FBI uh uh for organized crime inquiries that were truly they were work, they were conducted by uh the late Robert Kennedy when he was uh attorney general. And between that and the fact that the mob couldn't get usual bank loans, commercial loans, um, and they couldn't use their own money, they were they felt like maybe it was time to exit. And that started happening in the late 1960s when Howard Hughes started purchasing many of the major hotel casinos on the strip.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Well, speaking of the mob, I I know your dad's life intersector with the mob in the casino world, but you chose a different path as a uh business and gaming attorney. So how did you manage to create your own legacy uh different from your father's?

SPEAKER_02 7:38

When I when I graduated from the University of Miami uh political science degree uh ultimately, and when I moved to Las Vegas, um I spent three years at my father's office. I was supposed to work with him, but I didn't have more than a desk and a paycheck, which was confusing to me because I thought I was going to learn about the business and and uh uh you know be heir to the company someday. But uh it always puzzled me where I was there, I got to know him because he didn't know me, I didn't know him since we left each other when we were when I was four years old. But ultimately I made the decision to leave Las Vegas. But I gained a lot of knowledge about the industry. It was more like sitting in the audience of a movie theater watching a movie and just taking in everything that you're hearing and seeing. Um, and the exit for me out of a family business was to become a professional, how to find an honorable way out. And uh law school was the opportunity that came to me. So I attended uh law school in uh Sacramento, California at the University of the Pacific. Went to four years of night school, worked in the day at the legislature as a legislative aide, and for a judge as a judicial clerk. Uh, when I ultimately got my jurisdictor degree, I said, okay, now I'm an attorney. What do I want to do with this? It wasn't my desire or my direction to become an attorney. And I didn't want to practice any traditional paths of law, whether it be criminal law, corporate law, um, personal injury, and others. And I thought that maybe if I could combine the knowledge that I had in the gaming industry and combine that with my law degree, um I could I could become something hopefully good in my field, competent, and it was a new and growing field at the time when uh I became an attorney. So uh I fashioned myself as a gaming attorney, started representing clients in different uh uh areas of regulated and licensed gaming, and I've been doing that for 40 years now.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Well, I know writing your book required you to revisit complicated memories and family history. So what was the biggest truth that you had to revisit when telling your story? Or the hardest truth.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Well, there were some inconsistencies uh in my life, Curtis, when I was with my father. Um the first one that I recall was when I was first married in the 1970s. And uh at my wedding, uh my former sister and brother-in-law were in the parking lot taking a break from the reception, and they saw these two men in suits writing down license plate numbers, and they approached them, and my sister-in-law said, What do you think you're doing? And this big tall man said, Mind your business, young lady. Um, I learned about this years later, but I was figuring, well, why are people taking license plate numbers in the parking lot of where I'm getting married? And it turned out that it was an individual that my father invited to the uh wedding who was of interest to the FBI. Uh years later, I'd travel with my father and we'd go, he'd take me on a trip overseas, a business trip. And coming back to the United States, he'd say, uh, listen, Glenn, if we get stopped at Customs for any reason, go ahead to the hotel. This is where we're staying, and I'll catch up with you later. And I would say to him, I'd say, Dad, why would you be stopped at Customs? And he'd say, Well, there's another person with my name and my birth date who's a Canadian, and he's apparently on a government watch list. So these kind of stories were kind of inconsistent and curious to me, but I was also somewhat naive in those days. Um, but when the book came out by Daniel Gomes and I read about my father, I guess the big shocking revelation was I knew that he had to rub elbows with people in the industry and that was mob dominated in those years, but I didn't realize how deeply involved he was with them from a business perspective. Uh, Ms. Gomes wrote about uh informants testifying to investigators that he's my father spent a lot of time in Havana, Cuba in the late 50s assisting the mob with their slot machines and their operations and representing interests of some people that couldn't be licensed themselves because of who they were. So I think I think the big revelation to me, Curtis, was realizing that my father was much deeper involved in activities than I ever truly knew or imagined. But understanding later on in life that the reason that I didn't know it, and the reason that he wanted me around him, but not involved in the business, is because he didn't want me around the people that he was working with. And he did me a favor.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Well, I know you've watched Nevada Gaming transform from a personality-driven industry to a corporate powerhouse. So talk about uh the biggest change that you've seen in the Nevada gaming industry over your career.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

In the beginning of uh, I'd say I I I became I started practicing law in Nevada in the 19 early 1980s. Um it was very informal doing business with people. Um I recall my father could sit down with a casino manager introducing him to a new slot machine or gaming device that he had developed, and wanted the casino manager to try the game out. And they have lunch, they talk about it. Casino manager would say, you know, I'll try to find some space on my casino floor to see how the game does. They would shake hands after a meal, and that was done. Of course, today you'd have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, you'd have to prove that your games perform well in other casinos, that you're not the first one testing out the game. And everything has become very formal, business-like, uh, money centers, um, and a truly corporate America. Uh, it's kind of sad, but that it's just the way it's developed. And then when public companies were permitted to get licensed in the 1980s, uh, Nevada had changed some laws which permitted public companies to own and operate gaming properties and casinos without the requirement of each and every shareholder having to be investigated. So you can imagine if you had a public company with a thousand shareholders before these laws were changed, each and every one of them would have to be investigated, even though they were just a passive investor. And now the laws are more relaxed, and licensing is limited to officers and directors and generally five or 10% equity holders in the company, whether it was private or public company. So it is totally different. I do miss the older days and the simpler days, but uh it's a lot more legitimate and regulated and tightly controlled today, which which is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Well, I know you've helped gaming companies navigate compliance expansion in technology. So talk about some of the biggest challenges gaming companies face today that people don't see.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

And I think the biggest lesson that I've learned that I've tried to teach my clients is especially foreign clients that are trying to come into the U.S. market, I try to impress upon them that, you know, your games may do very well in your home country, but you can't assume that they're going to do the same and be as profitable in the U.S. You're different dealing with different players, different markets, and so on. And I've had clients who uh have entered the U.S. market from Europe or South America with a bit of an ego and a lot of money, and they would build their infrastructure and build their plants and employ 80 to 100 employees from day one without first testing their game on a casino floor through maybe a distributor to see if the players like their game. So I've seen that happen a couple of times where people lost significant capital because they did it backwards. Um and um I I believe a conservative method that I've learned about first introducing your product, testing it out, seeing if people like them before you invest vast amounts of money is truly the way to go. And um that's just more of a gaming marketing and method that uh I've learned over time, and and many of my clients have learned that as well from me or just being in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Well, talk to the listeners about your book, you know, kind of tell us uh what we can expect when we read it and where we can get it.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Um the book was uh published in uh January of this year. And um it starts out tracing my family history, both my father's side of the family in upstate New York, where my father was the youngest of 10 children, living on top upstairs from a family bakery that operated for 50 years, and how he and his family members survived from a poor family with a single parent, and you know, how they engaged themselves in gray area businesses to survive. And at the same time, I would talk about my maternal side, my grandfather, my mother's father, who was a barber in the nearby town and had some cottages along a lake in Loch Sheldrick, New York, and how he would be dealing with the same individuals that my father was, but a generation earlier. And he was a barber giving haircuts and shaves to mobsters who were hanging out in the area, while in the evening there were people being found in the nearby lake after they were disposed of by the mob. So it it all of this gaming, gaming activity and mob activity really traced back in my family and in their surroundings back to the 1930s. Uh, but the book goes forward, it traces my life uh growing up in uh in the Bronx in New York City, near Yankee Stadium, uh the good times that I had as a young child there and being in the little league, playing games across the street from the old Yankee Stadium, and then ultimately moving to uh Miami. Um, as I mentioned, their education. And uh it it went full blast through my childhood and my adult years and its challenges that I faced, um, and then segued into my father's life and talked about how he made a name for himself. He was actually very well respected, but he chose a path to get there, which I can't really judge him on because I didn't live his life. I wasn't supporting a family on alimony at the time like he was. So um it's a full circle in the book, and I think I've paid uh some homage and uh some honor on my father uh telling his story uh where he couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listers need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Well, I've been asked about what my next book is, but I haven't started writing it. But I appreciate hearing the comments from people who who've read my book and they enjoyed my writing style. Um and that's uh that's a a compliment that uh you don't often get. Um there's been inquiries about maybe uh trying to do a screenplay or a mini-series on the book that hasn't advanced much yet. But the writing style that I've used is more, I've been told, to be cinematic and more storytelling from a what could transpose to a movie situation. Um projects that I'm working on, actually, I'm working on one project now, uh, which is developing an online casino uh for a Caribbean land-based casino that's been in operation for years. It's very methodical from choosing the right jurisdiction to get licensed in, where to place your games, where to broadcast them to, where it's legal to do so, how to get licensed. Um it's a major project, but it's a new one for me. I have never been that deeply involved in the online gaming side, but it's it's really the future of gaming in its positive and its negative ways. Uh, and besides that, I continue to teach as an adjunct professor at the uh University of the Pacific uh McGeorge School of Law, where I went to law school years ago. And I teach gaming law and regulation to uh students of my alma mater, so that's very pleasing to me as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Well, so listeners can keep up with everything that you up to the Let's Contact Info.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Um, people can reach me through my website. It's uh global gaminglawyer.com. And uh I I certainly hope that those of your listeners have a chance to read the book and enjoy it and pass their comments on to me if they'd like. And uh I truly appreciate the time today that you've uh provided to me, Curtis.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Absolutely, ladies and gentlemen. You say global gaming warrior dot com, right? Correct. All right. Well, you have any final thoughts for the listeners, maybe if that was something. I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Well, yes, I would. I'd like to touch on challenges and overcoming them. It's a it's a universal theme. We've all had our ups and downs, maybe not the exact story, but I think we either survive by perseverance and belief in ourselves, or we don't. In the course of my life, uh I've been fortunate to be successful in business, but then I've been unfortunate to uh start over again in my early uh 50s uh after an unexpected divorce. So I financially chose to um uh make a settlement and uh start my life over. So uh at the age of 51, I was living in a motel in Laughlin, Nevada, operating a casino on the uh Colorado River, and living in a $15 a night uh motel uh while still doing what I could to support my two children. And um, you know, I had a choice to make at that time, Curtis. Um I could either let myself down and and uh and uh maybe do something uh not so wise personally to myself, or have belief in myself that I could get back on my feet, work hard, believe in myself, and have faith that life is going to turn around. And ultimately it did. Um, I had a have a very close friend of mine who once paid me a compliment, but it really didn't seem like a compliment at the time, because he knew my life. And he said, You know, Glenn, you remind me of a clown. I said, Is that supposed to be a compliment? He says, No, no, no, you don't understand what I'm saying. He says, You remember when we were children and they used to have these blown blown-up clowns that would sit upright, and if you would hit it, it would fall to the side and then it would immediately pop back up. He says, That's what you remind me of. And it was a very kind compliment, but thinking about it, I think a lesson that I learned and others hopefully do as well is when you get knocked down and you feel the pain, uh you try to get yourself back up as soon as you can and keep going. So I guess that's what I'd pass on to your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Absolutely, ladies and gentlemen. And for more information on Glenn and his book and everything that he's up to, Global Gaming Warrior.com is the website. Please go check out the book and follow, rate review, share this episode, especially to those who love gaming. And also visit if you haven't already done so www.curveball337.com to keep up with all things living the dream. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Glenn, thank you for having the courage to share your story. Thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me. Thank you, Curtis.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit w dot curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.