Biography

David G. Schwartz is a gaming historian. Currently serving as UNLV's ombuds, Schwartz was the longtime former director of the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV, a hub for scholarly analysis of gambling and gaming issues. The center is part of University Libraries and boasts the largest repository of English-language materials on gambling and has an unparalleled repository of books, journals, and primary materials for gaming research. The center also maintains casino corporate archives including the Harrah’s Entertainment, MGM Resorts, and Boyd Gaming Corporate Archives, gaming-related manuscript collections such as the Sands, New Frontier, and Binion’s Horseshoe collections, and a growing number of collections obtained under the Problem Gambling Pioneers initiative, which collects and preserves the papers of the pioneers of the problem gambling treatment and advocacy movement.

In addition to his work at UNLV, Schwartz is an active consultant. As vice president of research and analytics for Santo Gaming, he assists the Las Vegas-based gaming management and consulting firm with a range of projects. He also serves as executive director for the Far West Popular Culture Association, a venue for the scholarly discussion of popular culture.

Schwartz is the author of four books about gambling, including Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling, Suburban Xanadu: The Casino Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and Beyond, Cutting the Wire: Gaming Prohibition and the Internet, and At the Sands: The Casino That Shaped Classic Las Vegas, Brought the Rat Pack Together, and Went Out With a Bang. He previously wrote the biweekly Green Felt Journal column for Vegas Seven magazine and was named gaming and hospitality editor of Vegas Seven.