Jeffrey Compton (Publisher)

After semi-successful careers as a tax accountant, corporate auditor, manufacturing executive, realtor, slot club expert and gaming consultant Jeffrey Compton founded CDC Gaming Reports in 2002 to distribute the Adams Daily Report. Over the subsequent sixteen years the company created one of the largest gaming industry business news websites in the world and distributes over 70 newsletters a month to over 30,000 casino industry executives.

Compton, a Las Vegas resident has been a guest lecturer on gaming and marketing at the Community College of Southern Nevada, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada Reno, and is the author of The Las Vegas Advisor Guide to Slot Clubs. He has a bachelor’s degree and an M.B.A. from Babson College and was in the inaugural class of the University of Reno’s Executive Development program in 1991.

Howard Stutz (Executive Editor)

Howard Stutz has spent more than three decades in Las Vegas as an award-winning journalist and communications professional. He covered the gaming industry from a local, statewide, national and international perspective during two stints with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, from 1987 to 1991 and from 2004 to 2016. Howard also worked in the gaming industry as a corporate communications and public relations representative for publicly traded companies. That vast experience gave Howard a knowledge of gaming’s history and a unique insight and perspective into the industry’s growth. Howard was part of the Review-Journal team that won several ethics awards in 2015, including the James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism from Northwestern University. Howard won the Peter Mead Memorial Award for Excellence in Gaming Media & Communications from the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers in 2016.

Cory Roberts (Associate Publisher)

Cory Roberts is a web developer and tech specialist who resides in Northeast Ohio. He has helped bring numerous CDC projects to life, including the News Database, the CDC Gaming Conference Calendar, the afternoon “Last Call” newsletter, and special “From the Floor” newsletters. He has also overseen several CDC Gaming Reports website redesigns. In 2017, Cory was named by Global Gaming Business Magazine as one of the gaming industry’s “40 under 40.” Cory graduated from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Institute of Music in 2012 with a Bachelor of Music. As a professional music teacher and web designer, he spends much of his time either on the computer or with a guitar in his hands. In his free time, he enjoys researching and playing with technology new and old, working on his house, cooking with his wife, bicycling, playing old video games, and raising his plant children.

Justin Martin (Associate Editor)

Justin Martin is a data scientist, writer, nascent web developer, technician and general jack-of-all-trades. He has been, at various times, an editor, a content farmer, a retail manager, a social media manager, a repairman, an IT consultant, a food buyer, and a barista. He co-led the Hurricane Sandy data reconciliation project for FEMA and the DSNY, and has consulted on SEO strategy, social media strategy, marketing and software implementation. He is currently at work on several projects and likes playing pinball.

Ken Adams (Senior Analyst)

Ken Adams has worked in and around the casino industry since 1969. During that time, he founded and published the annual Nevada Gaming Almanac, was the co-author of several industry-related oral histories and an almanac of casino data, and served on many industry-related boards and committee, including the boards of two public companies, a university board, the Gaming Management Advisory Board, the Gaming Industry Association’s Speakers’ Bureau, and the Reno Downtown Improvement Association. He has published the Adams Report (a monthly newsletter) since 1997, the Adams Daily Report (a daily electronic newsletter) since 2002, and the Adams Analysis (a monthly opinion piece) since 2002.

Jim McGlasson (Advertising Manager)

It’s been a bit more than one year since Jim McGlasson joined the team of professionals at CDC Gaming Reports as our Advertising manager. Prior to joining CDC Gaming Reports, Jim spent nearly 30 years in Las Vegas at The Las Vegas Sun as General Manager, and later took over the reins at ShowBiz Weekly, leading the team that created the number one tourist publication in Las Vegas. In 2009 he was contacted by the owners of What’s On Las Vegas, a 60-year-old tourist publication. Then, in early 2016, after seven years of dedicated rebuilding of WOLV, it closed following the sudden death of its owner, leaving Jim looking for new opportunities. Jim looks forward to meeting with you and help you with your marketing goals.

John Broughton (Copy Editor)

John Broughton is a semi-retired editor living in Windsor, California. He is the author of the 2008 books Wikipedia: The Missing Manual and Wikipedia Reader’s Guide: The Missing Manual (O’Reilly Media/Pogue Press), and has degrees from Johns Hopkins University, Golden Gate University, the University of Southern California, and U.C. Berkeley.

Buddy Frank

Raised in Northern Nevada, Buddy has been hooked on gaming since he used crayons to mark his mom’s Keno tickets (while dining on “Awful Awful” burgers at the Sparks Nugget). He started covering casinos as a TV journalist in Reno after graduation from UNR. After a decade of news reporting, he made the transition first to casino marketing and eventually slot operations. After 30 years with various casinos, he recently retired from Pechanga Resort & Casino in southern California to spend more time with his wife and three new granddaughters. He now runs a consulting service (BF Slot Strategies) where his focus remains on slot performance, systems, analytics and team training. He has taught classes on gaming/marketing in the past with San Diego State and now is doing the same with UNR. His non-gaming interests are cycling, underwater photography, model trains, Nevada history, UNR sports, and fixing his ever-broken sprinkler system.

Luke Haward

Luke Haward is our European Gaming Expert and has worked in the gaming industry for over ten years. Luke is a columnist, author, entrepreneur and poker pro living and working in Oxford, UK. His areas of expertise include European gaming, cryptocurrency & blockchain, corporate responsibility, ecology and sustainability, and, of course, poker!

Mark Gruetze

Mark Gruetze of suburban Pittsburgh was a journalist for more than 40 years before retiring in 2015 as administrative editor and gambling columnist for Trib Total Media. A recreational gambler for most of his adult life, he wrote the Player’s Advantage column from 2010 to 2017, covering gambling from a player’s perspective.

Frank Legato

Frank Legato is editor of Global Gaming Business magazine. He has been writing on gaming topics since 1984, when he launched and served as editor of Casino Gaming magazine. Legato, a nationally recognized expert on slot machines, has served as editor and reporter for a variety of gaming publications, including Public Gaming, IGWB, Casino Journal, Casino Player, Strictly Slots and Atlantic City Insider. He has an B.A. in journalism and an M.A. in communications from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. He is the author of the humor book How To Win Millions Playing Slot Machines… Or Lose Trying, and a coffee-table book on Atlantic City, Atlantic City: In Living Color.

Dave Newton

Dave has over twenty years’ experience in Human Resources, including eleven at the VP level. Dave is President of CDC Gaming Seminars and a partner with Hospitality Resources, a company that specializes in helping organizations increase employee engagement and performance. He has taught on-line classes for UNLV and been a presenter on HR topics for a variety of organizations.

Prior to his current position, Dave was VPHR at the Venetian Casino Resort in Las Vegas for six years, and led the creation and implementation of all HR policies at that very successful 4,000-employee property. The Venetian won two first-place awards among large employers for Workplace Excellence during Dave’s time there.

Prior to that Dave was Corporate Director of HR for Station Casinos in Las Vegas and he held several positions (including VPHR and General Manager) during his eleven years with Accor North America, a division of Accor hotels.

Dave has an undergraduate degree from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and an MBA from Pace University in New York City. He holds the senior human resource certifications SPHR and SHRM-SCP.

Brett Smiley

Brett Smiley is the editor-in-chief of SportsHandle.com, which represents the convergence of his interests and training: sports, sports betting, journalism and law. Prior to co-founding SportsHandle, Smiley covered the NFL, MLB and social news for FOXSports.com. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, Smiley earned his J.D. at Syracuse University College of Law, before practicing commercial litigation in New York City. From there he pursued a career in sportswriting. His interest in sports and sports betting goes back to before he can remember, perhaps when he accompanied hisfather to an OTB parlor in the ’80s, later telling his first grade classmates that his father bet on horses for a living. Brett began playing fantasy football in the pre-internet loose-leaf paper era, and betting football games on the playground. At Penn, he played offensive guard on the Quakers’ Collegiate Sprint Football Team, earning a letter each season.

John L. Smith

John L. Smith is a native Nevadan who has covered aspects of the gaming industry for more than three decades. A longtime newspaper columnist, Smith was inducted into the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame in 2016, the same year that saw him share in three national journalism awards. He’s the author of more than a dozen books and the father of an adult daughter, Amelia.

Nick Sortal

Nick Sortal is the Miami Herald’s new gambling columnist and South Florida’s expert journalist when it comes to the gambling scene. He covered the openings, expansions, poker tournaments, entertainment and human interest facets of the industry for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel from 2007 until taking a buyout in November 2015. He also reports on gambling on his site, SouthFloridaGambling.com. The Southern Illinois native worked for papers in St. Louis and Indianapolis before joining the Sun-Sentinel in 1985. He likes triathlons, country music, basketball and bragging about his family. Contact him at NickSortal@BellSouth.net.

Andrew Tottenham

Andrew is Managing Director of Tottenham & Co, a business consulting firm specialising in strategic planning, market assessments, feasibility studies and project development. He founded Tottenham & Co in 1986 which he grew into one of the most prestigious management consulting firms specialising in the international gaming industry. Clients included blue chip gaming operators and suppliers such as; Caesars Entertainment, Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts International, Rank plc, Sun International, IGT, KPMG, Deloitte & Touche and Alchemy Partners. The firm has a global reach with clients in all continents. The firm has also acted as advisers to the Government of Hungary and Switzerland.

For five years he was Managing Director Development Europe for Caesars Entertainment and is currently a board member of Groupe Joa, a French casino operator with 22 casinos distributed throughout the country.

In his role as a consultant he was project lead for US casino resort operators overseeing the development of integrated resorts. He has also analysed the viability of casino resorts throughout the world and developed strategic plans for both online and land-based gaming companies. Mr Tottenham has also project managed the development of online casinos and an interactive tv gambling channel.

Buck Wargo

Buck Wargo is a former journalist with the Los Angeles Times and Las Vegas Sun. Today, he’s a freelance business writer covering a range of issues from gaming to development and real estate for publications across the country, including Las Vegas. Born near Chicago, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies. He has worked in the Middle East as a foreign correspondent. He currently lives in Las Vegas.

KL (CDC Oriental Elite Team)

KL is a senior executive of a reputable international consulting firm, focusing on regulatory compliance in the financial sector and gaming industry with experiences gained from various leading consulting firms. KL has led and heavily involved in a lot of regulatory compliance review projects with the involvement of regulators in the Asia-Pacific Region. Also, KL has been actively assisting industry members and governments in emerging gaming jurisdictions across the Asia-Pacific region.

SL (CDC Oriental Elite Team)

SL is a senior executive of an international consulting firm, focusing on regulatory compliance in the financial sector and the gaming industry. He also works closely with the Asian gaming sector and assists the industry to shape and upgrade their regulatory compliance and overall risk management standards. Prior to being a consultant, SL held various senior positions in the financial sector for a decade, and served as a criminal investigator and assisted the prosecution in Hong Kong before advancing his career in the financial sector.

Staci Alonso

Staci Columbo Alonso worked in the gaming industry for over three decades with a true passion fueled by gratitude for finding love in her work. Recently retired, Alonso most recently served as Executive Vice President | Innovation and Administration for the company. Her responsibilities include leading the Information Technology, Marketing, Communications, Human Resources and Gaming Innovation and Development divisions.

At the age of 32, she was recognized as one of the “Top 40 under 40” in Las Vegas and in 2011 was the recipient of the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. In its inaugural year, Alonso was recognized as one of the “Top Ten Women in Gaming” by CEM, alongside legendary Claudine Williams.

After volunteering in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, Staci recognized the importance of including pets in emergency rescue plans. While on the board of The Shade Tree, Nevada’s largest women and children emergency shelter, she founded Noah’s Animal House in 2007, the first full service pet kennel on the grounds of a domestic violence shelter in the country. Since inception, Noah’s Animal House has sheltered over 1400 pets for over 90,000 boarding nights. Noah’s has received national recognition including People magazine, USA Today, Best Friends, Woman’s Day and most recently, captured the heart of UFC Superstar, Ronda Rousey.

She now resides in Reno and is married to Michael Alonso and is devoted to her 17 year old son, Noah and their crew of dogs and cats.

David Schwartz

Dr. David G. Schwartz directs the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, teaches history, writes for Vegas Seven magazine, and only occasionally pines for his days working as Mr. Peanut on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. His research interests include gambling and casinos, Las Vegas, competitive video gaming, and professional wrestling.

An Atlantic City native and former casino employee, Schwartz has written books about the development of casinos (Suburban Xanadu), the Wire Act (Cutting the Wire), gambling history (Roll the Bones), Las Vegas casino builder Jay Sarno (Grandissimo), and Atlantic City (Boardwalk Playground). He has also edited collections of essays and oral histories. His non-fiction writing has won multiple Nevada Press Association awards, and he was named the 2014 Trippies Las Vegas Person of the Year in recognition of his contributions to the study of gambling and Las Vegas — and perhaps his tasty artisanal nut butters. In his neighborhood, he is more widely appreciated for his macaroons.

Schwartz lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife and their two children.

Dennis Conrad

Dennis Conrad is the Founder and President Emeritus of Raving Consulting Company. He is a Stanford University graduate with over four decades of experience in the gaming industry, having held a number of senior level positions in the past at Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. and Circus Circus Enterprises/Mandalay Resort Group, before founding Raving in 1998. He is a sought-after speaker at both national and international gaming conferences and is the author of “Conrad’s Corners: Observations on Casinos, Marketing and Life” (2004) and “Conrad on Casino Marketing” (2009), as well as a longtime marketing columnist for Casino Journal. Known for his innovation and customer focus, Dennis was the soul of Raving and the inspiration behind its industry trailblazing and business development, before his sale of the company in 2017, Dennis and Raving are proud supporters of the Notah Begay III Foundation and its critically important work addressing type 2 diabetes among Native American youth, and have raised over $200,000 for NB3F through a variety of gaming industry fundraising activities. In his semi-retirement, he maintains a small but select group of consulting clients who value his insight, experience and candor. Among his many gaming industry honors was the Casino Marketing Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.

Anthony Curtis

Anthony Curtis is the most recognized and quoted Las Vegas expert in the world. A former professional gambler, Curtis is publisher and CEO of Huntington Press, the world’s preeminent press for gambling titles, and of LasVegasAdvisor.com, the most visited independent online guide to the city and home to its leading consumer newsletter for two decades.

Kenny Epstein

Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Kenny Epstein arrived in Las Vegas in 1960. His career began in the insurance and real estate industries until he transitioned to hospitality and gaming when Caesars Palace opened in 1966. After nine years at Caesars Palace, Epstein met Jackie Gaughan, who offered him a share in his downtown property, the legendary El Cortez Hotel & Casino. Epstein then invested in El Cortez Hotel & Casino and left Caesars Palace to work at the iconic downtown property in 1975.

Presented with a new opportunity, Kenny and partners Michael Gaughan, Frank Toti and a few others opened the Barbary Coast on the Las Vegas Strip in 1979. This was the beginning of the boom in Las Vegas that brought several hotel and gaming projects to fruition along with citywide growth. They continued on to open the Gold Coast Hotel & Casino, The Orleans Hotel & Casino, the Sun Coast and The South Coast.

In 2008, the Epstein family purchased Gaughan’s interest, and he, along with his son and daughters, are now majority owners of the El Cortez Hotel & Casino.

Epstein has dedicated decades of his life toward the improvement and revitalization of Downtown Las Vegas as well as being a founding member of the Keep Memory Alive Foundation, which supports the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.

Terrance Oliver

Terrance Oliver is co-owner and chairman of Reno Lumber, a wholesale lumber company, and a principal and member of the board of managers of Unique Infrastructure Group, LLC, a Reno-based developer of a 2,200-acre data center project, Reno Technology Park, located just east of Reno.

Between 1973 and 2012, Oliver held a number of positions in the gaming industry, including marketing director and casino vice president of Harolds Club in Reno and casino vice president of the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, for the Howard Hughes Recreation Group; corporate casino vice president and chief operating officer of Fitzgeralds Gaming Corporation; board director, chairman of the board, and interim chief executive officer for Progressive Gaming International Corporation; and, most recently, as a member of the board of managers and a minority unit holder of Peninsula Gaming, a privately held company that owned and operated five casinos in Kansas, Iowa, and Louisiana.

Terry received a degree in journalism from the University of Nevada in 1971. Since 2008, he has been a member of board of trustees of the University of Nevada Foundation.

In the early 1970s Terry was a reporter for KTVN television news in Reno. Since 1996, he has served on the Board of Trustees for KNPB public television in Reno, including three years as board chairman.

Terry Oliver has lived in Reno, since 1960. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1967-1972. He and his wife Linda, who married in 1975, have two daughters.

(Publisher’s Note: In 1990 at a London Gaming conference Terry Oliver met Jeffrey Compton, then a mid-western businessman with an interest in the gaming industry. Over the next few years Oliver encouraged Compton to pursue that interest – which he did. Depending on who you talk to this is Terry’s most prestigious or dubious achievement.)

Marcus Prater

Executive Director Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM)

Marcus Prater, with more than 36 years of professional communications experience, serves as Executive Director of the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM), a non-profit trade organization comprised of the world top gaming industry suppliers whose mission is to further the interests of its members throughout the world. Under his leadership starting in 2008, membership in AGEM has grown from 32 companies to a high of 162 over the past 9 years. Prater previously served as Senior Vice President of Marketing for Bally Technologies, Inc., where he spent a total of nine years at the Las Vegas-based slot machine and systems provider and directed Bally’s global advertising, trade show, machine and systems sales support, media relations and special event functions. Prior to joining Bally in 1999, Prater served as Director of Marketing for Las Vegas-based slot supplier Sigma Game, Inc. Prater, a graduate of the University of Oregon School of Journalism, also previously served as Marketing Communications Manager for Las Vegas-based casino operator Ameristar Casinos, Inc.

AGEM, a non-profit association, leads by following our mission statement:

“The Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers is an international trade association representing manufacturers of electronic gaming devices, systems, and components for the gaming industry. The Association, as a good corporate citizen, identifies and acts upon issues relating to education, trade show representation, regulation, manufacturing and licensing standards, and promotes the expansion of responsible gaming for the benefit of its members and the industry.”

Sarah M. Regan

Sarah M. Regan is the Business Administrator for McCormick & Son Insurance, a family business with two branches in southeastern Massachusetts. Her prior career experience includes working for Mobil Oil and operating a catering company. Sarah first worked with CDC Publisher Jeffrey Compton in their college days while she was the Managing Editor of The Babson Free Press. Known for her quick grasp and honest approach Sarah is an expert on Massachusetts gaming (our words, not hers), and was the only participant in the CDC Gaming Reports 2014 Election Contest to get a perfect score in that contest. Sarah and her husband Mike live on Cape Cod and are the parents of three children.

Roy Student

Roy Student is the founder and president of Applied Management Strategies (AMS). A long-time gaming and hospitality executive, Student utilizes his key expertise and experience as a sought-after consultant and speaker to the international casino and gaming industry from his base in Las Vegas. Student has traveled throughout the world and has extensive gaming contacts and relationships within the various global regions.

Student has been the force behind the successful market entry for companies expanding as well as coming from Asia, Europe and South America. Listed in the “Who’s Who of Casino Gaming,” Student is a member of the International Association of Gaming Attorneys and has participated in casino gaming on five continents. He currently sits on the board of Win Systems, Global Gaming Business Magazine and the G2E Conference. He has been honored as a recipient of the annual Global Gaming Business Gaming and Technology Award.

During his distinguished career, Student has an executive with Sulcus Hospitality Group, where he developed the company’s mega-resort strategic casino plan. He honed his skills during an eighteen-year stint with General Instrument Corporation, as Vice President of the Business Systems division and as Vice President of Gaming Operations.

Student earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering from the New York Institute of Technology in 1964. In 1968 he completed the Executive Management Training Program at Wharton School of Business. In 2009, Student was cited for outstanding accomplishments by his alma mater and inducted into the New York Institute of Technology’s Hall of Fame, one of only 65 alumni similarly honored.

Jill (Merk) Maturino

Jill (Merk) Maturino, at Elevate Web Designs, has been in business for over a decade, working with many different types of businesses. CDC Gaming Reports has been a valued client since the beginning. In her personal life, she has a wonderful husband with whom she loves to travel, ski, hike and dine. They can be also found at home with their two young boys and fluffy Australian Shepard, Bella.