Paul Ryan, general manager of Fantasy Springs Casino Resort, has over two decades of top-level leadership experience including prior positions with Trump Entertainment Resorts and Merv Griffin Hotels. His hobbies include golf, fishing, guitar, and running five miles virtually everyday.

GolfNews Magazine: Share with us a decision you’ve made that was a major ‘homerun’ in your career.
Paul Ryan: The first one that comes to mind was a big career decision, and I didn’t do it alone. Ultimately, it was my boss saying let’s go with it. I was the voice standing there saying, “Do it, do it, do it.” And that was to bring an extremely large rock ‘n roll band to Atlantic City at a time when casino entertainment merely was crooners and people at the end of their career.
No one in gaming at the time was into the hard rock phenomenon. We were determined to give the property its own identity, so we booked Eddie Van Halen and his band. It took a lot of guts because the money was big. Nobody was spending that kind of money. If it was a disaster, we would have had a lot of answering to do. It turned out to be of the most dynamic nights that any of us had ever experienced.
We hit pandemonium. We lost control of the traffic. We lost control of the street. We lost control of escalators. But when it was all said and done, we put that property on the map. And that’s what it needed.

GNM: Speaking of large expenditures, building Eagle Falls Golf Course located on the Fantasy Springs Resort property; how pleased are you with the course?
Ryan: The golf course turned out better than imagined. If you were to talk to us a month before Eagle Falls opened and said a year from now, you’re the first choice of Playboy, you’re the first choice of Fox, we probably would not have believed it ourselves.

GNM: How did Fantasy Springs entice you to come west, away from your New Jersey roots with a tremendous track record?
Ryan: I always joke that I had to leave Atlantic City for the mayor to really become mayor. [laughter] I really did it for that purpose to let him take over.
We had just gone through a $1.8 billion restructuring for the company I was working for and it took so much energy; no vacations for years. We had a successful conclusion of that in May of ’05. UBS was the underwriter and that’s when I worked for Trump.
At that point, the board of directors changed, and senior management was beginning to change. I didn’t really know where I fit. The hardest part of the job had been done.
I was introduced to the tribe, came out to the desert and talked to them, and came back two more times. Then I started thinking, I’m turning 50, there is something to be said about moving to a place where it is sunny everyday. That had a lot to do with my move.
I knew that this resort was a story that hadn’t been written yet. This was a great, great, great project and I was excited to be a part of it.

GNM: Last month, you mentioned the misconception that a lot of people have about gaming that it preys on gambling addiction. Whereas, you said this couldn’t be further from the truth. Please elaborate.
Ryan: Any [gaming] company I’ve ever worked for has been committed to creating an entertainment experience and creating value. We are just another choice, whether you’re going to the movies, whether you’re going to a ball game, whether you’re going to spend the night going out to a casino.
We, on the other hand, will not play to customers if we think they have a problem. The industry as a whole has always been very disciplined and I’ve worked for quite a few companies. That has always been the case.
We’ve been fighting for years to tell the world that this is a great, legitimate entertainment business. And I think that’s really come to light. So, the good side of that is…

GNM: Do you think the casinos have done a good enough job in telling that story to the people?
Ryan: I hope we are. There are people that are always trying to tell that story. I know here in this property just in the two to three years I’ve been here, there have been many times we’ve told a player that we will not deal to you; we will not take your action. We will exclude people because we feel it’s in their best interest not to be here.

GNM: How do you tell when a customer has crossed that line and his or her behavior is in the realm of addiction?
Ryan: We review the customers on a weekly basis. We’ll see some customers that start to have patterns. I had one recently, the casino manager was talking about a player and he said he was getting very nervous about the player and that it was becoming a problem, so we stopped dealing to the person. I don’t think that’s unique to Fantasy Springs.

GNM: I had no idea that this kind of monitoring went on. I’m 62 years old, I lived in Lake Tahoe for nearly 10 years and had my stints with the casinos. This is before all the Indian casinos existed. I lived only 10 minutes away from Stateline. I had no idea that the casinos were so proactive in doing this. That’s honorable.
Ryan: Our business model is better served being this way. This is what has allowed gaming to expand nationwide because jurisdictions are seeing that this is a legitimate business. It’s also a legitimate revenue source for governments. And it is a business that’s extremely regulated and self-governed.