Ask named GCD administrator
By Cole Boehler
Montana Atty. Gen. Steve Bullock announced June 26 the appointment of Rick Ask to the administrative post at the Gambling Control Division (GCD). Ask has been the division's Operations Bureau chief for the past 10 years and had been serving as acting administrator since Gene Huntington's retirement at the end of December.
Following the appointment, Atty. Gen. Bullock told the Montana Tavern Times, "Rick brings a considerable breadth of experience to the administrator's position. Fortunately for us, when Gene Huntington retired shortly before the legislature convened, Rick was willing to step into the role of acting division administrator and he did a great job.
"Rick is a dedicated public servant," Bullock continued, "who understands the gambling business inside and out, so I'm very pleased that he has agreed to continue as part of the Department of Justice management team.
 |
Rick Ask
|
"I'm confident that his long experience, professionalism and solid working relationships across the industry will be positive for the division, the department and for the people and businesses of Montana."
Ask joined the GCD at the time of its creation back in 1989 when it was still under the Department of Commerce. It later became a division of the Department of Justice. He has served under four attorneys general and four division administrators.
Ask was born, and graduated high school, in Roundup, then earned a bachelors degree in Business Finance in 1978 and a Masters in Public Administration in 1988 from the University of Montana. He has been active in the North American Gaming Regulators Association and began a term as its president in 1993.
Ask is married to Tanya, who is a vice president for government affairs for New West Health Services. They have three children: James is a Naval Academy graduate and an officer in the U.S. Navy; Ben continues to pursue an undergraduate degree in Missoula while he is employed at the airport there; and daughter Signey, just married July 4 (Ask says as a result he's "broke and still tired"), has a degree in psychology and is employed by A.W.A.R.R.E. Inc. helping troubled youth.
Atty. Gen. Bullock, who worked under former Atty. Gen. Joe Mazurek, has known Ask for better than a decade. The two also worked closely together during the 2009 session of the Legislature while Ask was acting GCD administrator.
Gaming industry leaders hailed Bullock's choice of Ask as an astute one, pointing to his experience, knowledge and reasonableness as important attributes he will bring to the job (see sidebar).
As far as Ask is concerned, the revolution in gaming regulation is over, and what remains is the evolution, largely technologically driven, of regulatory processes and procedures with an eye focused constantly on efficiency and effectiveness.
Bringing the accounting and compliance procedures into the 21st Century was a decade-long struggle Ask cites as being the most momentous of his career, evolving conceptually from a proposed mandatory "dial-up" system in 1995 to today's Internet based voluntary reporting system. This system is now covering almost 90 percent of the machines in operation and ties into the Department of Revenue's GenTax system.
Ask said a natural attrition, perhaps spurred by changes in business ownerships, will eventually have all machines reporting on-line. Soon, no operator running multi-game machines will be able to report manually.
"It's working well for both the state and the industry," Ask said. "It's a good solution. We still run into (a problem with the new system) occasionally, but where we're at now we figure out the cause and its prevention, then implement a solution. It's pretty minor anymore."
Ask said he is planning to put a "working group" together in the fall to address further system improvements and advances, especially as it applies to licensing functions. "There is progress we can make, there's more to do," he says.
Ask said he is "excited" about the latest round of technological innovation to machine design: replacing impact printers and paper audit rolls with alternative storage devices (ASDs) such as secure "thumb drives."
"The changes in technology are driven by the industry," Ask said. "The manufacturers are highly innovative." The ASDs "are a new plane for compliance and auditing purposes," he said, that will produce "more efficiency, more effectiveness."
"The reduction in record retention requirements has been significant," he said, first under the automated reporting solution, and now potentially with the move from printed to digital data storage. "For larger operators, this is very important," he added. He acknowledged the bulky and cumbersome paper audit rolls were universally loathed by industry and regulators alike.
Ask said some older machines with slower processors could encounter more lengthy boot-up times as all the stored data needs to be verified at start up, but hopes all manufacturers will be encouraged to move to the high speed platforms. "We're going to run into issues like that" as the technology changes, Ask said.
As for Ask's outlook for the division's future, he said he anticipated steady progress and a continuation with the culture of co-operation fostered by his predecessors.
”Our intention is that we are going to keep this (agency) moving forward and maintain our good working relationship with industry. They help us identify improvements to our systems.”