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March 10, 2008

No spin zone | He made his mark trying to keep slot machines out of Maine. Now groups in other states are lining up to hire PR strategist Dennis Bailey

By Taylor Smith

The way Dennis Bailey sees it, moral outrage isn't enough to keep casinos out of Maine. Think craps and high-stakes poker threaten the country's value system? Well, what's ethical won't play with voters."You can't run a campaign against gambling. It's not a sin anymore," says Bailey, president of Portland public relations firm Savvy Inc. "We've lost that battle."

The way Dennis Bailey sees it, moral outrage isn't enough to keep casinos out of Maine. Think craps and high-stakes poker threaten the country's value system? Well, what's ethical won't play with voters."You can't run a campaign against gambling. It's not a sin anymore," says Bailey, president of Portland public relations firm Savvy Inc. "We've lost that battle."

Instead, Bailey uses a different approach to keep casinos from gaining a foothold in Maine. He's launched a frontal assault criticizing the flawed technology behind modern slot machines (he describes them as "inherently fraudulent") and a flanking attack of impassioned pleas to protect Maine's rural character. "My argument is that I've always liked Vegas, but I don't want to live there," he says.

And after a number of high profile wins this way in Maine, including spearheading the opposition to a large-scale casino development plan in Sanford in 2003, Bailey is bringing his tactics beyond Maine. In recent months, he's consulted on an anti-gambling project in Washington, leading a group called the Freedom Players into a casino and staging what amounted to a low-key sit-in. He's also been contacted by a Kentucky group gearing up for a showdown over a planned casino in the Bluegrass State.

And last month, Bailey, 54, received national press for joining forces with his twin brother, Doug, who runs DBMediaStrategies in Boston, to head up Casino Free Mass. The group is targeting a Massachusetts casino proposal that would legalize three casinos in the state. To complicate matters for Bailey, the plan is backed by power players like Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Donald Trump.

Bailey's distaste for casinos formed during his tenure as Gov. Angus King's PR man in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Researching gambling proposals for the state, he says, he found loads of literature railing against casinos, from critiques of slot machine odds to the social impact of gambling facilities. "Casinos became a passion," he says.

In Massachusetts, that passion will go head-to-head with political reality. That's because casino plans with gubernatorial backing are much more likely to successfully navigate the bureaucratic minefield. Still, he sees plenty of cracks in Patrick's plan, including pro-casino talking points that describe the flood of new money gambling would bring into the state. Instead, argues Bailey, locals would contribute the bulk of the casino's take. "His proposal is so outlandish it would crumble under its own weight," says Bailey. "You're taking money right out of the Massachusetts economy."

Bailey says he's now on the radar screen of anti-casino groups thanks to his work on casino issues in Maine. He's been involved in a number of state referendums, from the 2000 effort to locate slot machines at the Scarborough Downs harness racetrack to last fall's failed citizen's initiative to allow slots in Washington County. His one mistake? Not diverting enough resources, he says, from the Sanford casino battle to fight a slot machine referendum in Bangor that voters approved in 2003. (That referendum paved the way for Hollywood Slots, Maine's only slot parlor, which is owned by Pennsylvania-based Penn National Gaming.)

Bailey says most of Savvy Inc.'s revenue comes from sources unrelated to his anti-casino battles, from the Maine Association of Realtors to state Sen. Ethan Strimling's (D-Portland) campaign for U.S. Congress. But though the casino business may not pad Savvy's bottom line, it has become a cornerstone on which Bailey is building his business. It's work Bailey says fits in well with the rest of Savvy. "I'm lucky, with one or two exceptions, to represent people that I really believe in," he says.

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