STATE OF MICHIGAN

MICHIGAN GAMING CONTROL BOARD

MILLIONAIRE PARTIES PUBLIC HEARING

Michigan Gaming Control Board

Cadillac Place

3062 W Grand Blvd, Suite L-700

Detroit MI 48202

Wednesday, April 12, 2023, 10:00 am

KURT STEINKAMP: Good morning. This is a public hearing on proposed amendments to the administrative

rules entitled Millionaire Party Rules. This hearing is being conducted under the provisions of the

Administrative Procedures Act, MCL 24.201 through 24.328 and on behalf of the Executive Director of the

Michigan Gaming Control Board. This public hearing is being recorded. This hearing is being called to order

at 10:00 am on Wednesday, April 12th, 2023, at the offices of the Michigan Gaming Control Board in

Detroit, MI. Notice of this hearing was published in three newspapers of general circulation, including

one newspaper in the Upper Peninsula, as well as the Michigan Register issue #5 published on April 1st,

2023.

My name is Kurt Steinkamp. I am the deputy director of the Licensing and Investigations Division of the

Michigan Gaming Control Board, and I will be facilitating this public hearing today. Please know we are

here today to receive comments on proposed amendments to the Millionaire Party rules. If you wish to

speak, please make sure you have signed in and indicated your willingness to speak. We will call on

speakers in the order that their names are listed on the sign in sheets. When you come forward to speak,

please identify yourself with your name and the organization you represent so that this information may

be part of the hearing report. If you've not included your, uh, contact information on the sign in sheet, uh,

please do so before you leave so that we have that information, uh, to follow up with you if necessary.

Additional written comments will be accepted electronically at MGCB-Rules@michigan.gov until 5:00 pm

today. Written comments sent to PO Box 30786, Lansing, MI 48909 will be accepted if postmarked no

later than April 12th, 2023. And with that, uh, we can start taking comments. Uh, Wendy, uh, who's the

first individual we have for, for comment?

WENDY HARNS: First, wishing to speak--

KURT STEINKAMP: Good morning, Pamala. Yep, if you could just approach the podium here and just

start with...

PAMALA YOUNG: I'm Pamala Young with the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2269 and the Veterans of

Foreign Wars Post 2269 Auxiliary. Rule R 432.309(2) states that “imitation money or chips must be used

for tipping…must not be used for tipping or the purchase of food, beverages, raffle tickets, charity game

tickets, numeral game tickets or non-gaming items.” My request that would delete "tipping or" from this

rule. At our Millionaire party location, players appreciate and expect us to bring them change when they

MGCB Millionaire Party Rules Public Hearing Transcript – April 12, 2023

want to tip, so we spent half of our time running back and forth between tables. And when you're getting

old, like most of our members, it gets a little bit, uhm, crazy. So my proposal is that we allow them to tip

the dealers with the chip, and to do that we would we would put a glass jar, something clear container,

on the pool, poker table that the players, when they want to tip, could drop the chips into the container.

When the dealers are relieved, then we would go up there and take the jar, redeem the chips to give the

money to the dealers and then obviously replace the, uh, container on the table. So that is my request to

make it easier on us old people to not have to run back and forth so often. Thank you.

KURT STEINKAMP: Thank you, Pamala, and thank you so much for showing up today and providing your

comments.

WENDY HARNS: Next is Katharine Hude and Michael Horvath.

KATHARINE HUDE: Good morning. My name is Katharine Hude. I'm the executive director of the

Michigan Charitable Gaming Association and I'm joined here today by the Michigan Charitable Gaming

Association Board of Directors Chair Michael Horvath. And Mike, you can, uh, say what charity you

represent.

MICHAEL HORVATH: Uh, I, I represent Knights of Columbus, uh, Council 10,006 in Okemos, MI and uh, I

just wanted to express our gratitude to yourself, Kurt and Director Williams for, uh, uh, giving us the time

and, uh, uh, to give us the time to hear us, hear us out on, on numerous occasions, not just at the hearing

today. We appreciate what you do for us. Thank you very much.

KATHARINE HUDE: Yeah. So, with regards to the rules as, uh, Mr. Horvath indicated, we appreciate the

Michigan Gaming Control Board, uhm, providing us with the rules in advance. Uhm, we understand that

many of the rule changes are simply to clean up the language, to put it more in alignment with the Traxler-

McCauley Bingo Act, which had a number of changes made to it that was signed into law by the governor

in December of 2019. So for the most part, these are, uhm, pretty straightforward changes. Uhm, with

regards to some additional amendments that could be made, uh, that we are here to speak on, uhm,

there's two items that we would like to see improvements made to, uhm, and we believe that could be

done through the rule process. The first is with regards to tipping. Uhm, very similar to the charity that

just spoke, uhm, we have heard from our constituents, our charity members time and time again that it

is, uhm, difficult to run out to the floor constantly. We do believe that some of the mistakes that are made

at the end of the evening when they're reconciling their financial statements likely are coming from, uhm,

the confusion of having to run out there because our charities are trying really hard not to interrupt play,

to keep the play going, uh, during the hands as quickly as possible. The players expect that. Uhm, and

then also on the small business side with our suppliers, uhm, they would really appreciate the ability to

have players tip their dealers with chips instead of waiting for cash. Uhm, again, helps to not interrupt

play, but also helps them to potentially retain and attract uh, professional high-quality dealers, uhm, and

not lose those out to casinos.

MGCB Millionaire Party Rules Public Hearing Transcript – April 12, 2023

Un, the other rule amendment that we would like to see is with regards to advertising. Right now, our

suppliers are not allowed to advertise locations. It's very limited advertising. And charities are allowed

to advertise, but some of the rules are somewhat antiquated. Uhm, almost predates or, y’know,

contemplates uh, things like Facebook pages or, uhm, a website being, or putting out a Twitter, uhm,

announcement about, uh, an event the charity is having, so we request some, uhm, allowability of

advertising by our suppliers and our locations and also taking a look at the, uh, somewhat antiquated

language about how quickly a charity must remove a post, uhm, font size, things of that nature. Other

than that, we again appreciate, uh, everything that Gaming Control Board is doing and otherwise support

the rules except for with regards to tipping and advertising. Thank you.

MICHAEL HORVATH: Thanks, Kurt.

KURT STEINKAMP: Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate you guys making the trip down here.

[next speaker approaches podium]

KURT STEINKAMP: If you could just provide your name and the organization you represent, and, uhm, if

you provided your contact information on the sign in sheet already, that's great. Uhm, and if not, if you

could provide that as well, that would be helpful.

ALEXANDER KLOCKO: Yep yeah, I'm Alex Klocko. I'm with uh, uh, Klocko LLC, a supplier in Walled Lake,

uhm, also here with Pam with the VFW 2269. Uhm, I just wanted to echo, uh, what the previous charities

have, uh, mentioned here. Uhm, the-the chip tips would be really helpful for all of our charities, uhm, as

far as how that happens, I know Pam mentioned with the maybe the glass jar is easier, or, uh, however it

works out, but how, if the, the dealers were able to take chip tips, uh, that would be very helpful for our

charities ’cause it does tax them quite a bit, uh, going to and from the, the tables constantly, uhm, and

with two to three, maybe even sometimes people have four, uh, volunteers, even with four volunteers

it's still difficult sometimes with three or four, uh, tables going at one time. Uhm, and then also on the

advertising. Uh, that's another thing that, uh, that would really be helpful for, for the charities, uhm, and

for, for all the, the players and, and dealers and everyone involved is to be able to do some sort of maybe

Facebook post or Twitter or whatever it is, uhm, rather than just being able to do flyers inside of the

building. Uhm, other than that, uh, like echoed before, thank you, for uh, for your time and, and all the,

uh, proposed rule changes, it’s really, uh, stepping in a, in a, in a good direction, so thank you.

KURT STEINKAMP: Thank you, Alex.

WENDY HARNS: There’s no one else.

KURT STEINKAMP: OK. Thank you.

OK, if there's no other, no other individuals who wish to speak at this time, we'll take a short recess. It's

currently, uh, 10:10 am. Uh, we will reconvene at 10:30 am. Thank you.

MGCB Millionaire Party Rules Public Hearing Transcript – April 12, 2023

Welcome back. It's 10:30 am on April 12th, 2023. We’re reconvening the, uh, public hearing on the

proposed amendments to the administrative rules entitled Millionaire Party Rules. Do we have any

additional individuals that would like to comment at this time? Okay, there’s, seeing no Individuals who

wish to speak at this time, uh, we will take a short recess. It's currently 10:30 am. We’ll recess until 11:00

am. Thank you.

It's 11:00 am. We're resuming, uh, the public hearing on proposed administrative rules to the

administrative rules entitled Millionaire Party Rules. Miss Harns, do we have anyone additional that would

like to testify? No one wishing to testify at this time. Seeing that there's no one wishing to testify, we will

take a short recess, uh, until 11:30 am. Thank you.

We are resuming the public hearing on proposed amendments to the administrative rules entitled

Millionaire Party rules. It is currently 11:30 am. Uh, we have no one additional to, uh, make comment at

this time on these rules, uh, and as such we will take a short recess until 11:59.

We are resuming, uh, the public hearing on proposed amendments to the administrative rules entitled

the Millionaire Party Rules. It is currently 11:59 am. We have, uh, no additional individuals wishing to

comment at this time. Seeing that there are no further, uh, comments at this time, I hereby declare the

hearing closed.

Additional wri-, uh, additional written comments will be accepted electronically at MGCB-

Rules@michigan.gov until 5:00 pm today. Written comments sent to PO Box 30786, Lansing, MI 48909

will be accepted if postmarked no later than April 12th, 2023. The current time is noon. Thank you for

coming.

MGCB Millionaire Party Rules Public Hearing Transcript – April 12, 2023