Airport Slot Machines

Michael Gaughan has had a monopoly on the 1,300 slot machines that are located at McCarran Airport for more than 20 years. Each year when his slot machine contract came up for renewal, it was automatically renewed without other bidders getting a chance to take on the slot machines. Gaughan has held the slot machine license since 1985 – but that may be changing.

For the first time, the airport has asked Clark County Commissioners to hire someone who will get proposals from other companies who might want to manage the slot machines instead. Gaughan’s contract expires in 2008, and the airport is hoping to get a more lucrative contract.

The airport currently gets 63% of the revenue generated by the slot machines, and received $39.6 million from the slot machines for the fiscal year ended in June. They say that the contract has been automatically renewed in the past because of the expansion that has been going on all this time. Now that the construction is almost complete, they think it is a good time to start looking at other vendors. Gaughan is planning on competing with other vendors for the slot machine contract.

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