SANTA YNEZ, Calif. — Gilbert Cash would have no chance of working as a blackjack dealer at one of the major hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.
The reason: Cash has filed for personal bankruptcy four times and failed to pay about $60,000 in income taxes. He also is awaiting trial on charges of choking and beating his estranged wife -- allegations he denies.
Yet as chairman of the gaming commission at the Chumash Casino Resort, Cash, 38, oversees more than $1 billion in wagering each year. Nor is he the only regulator at the Santa Barbara County casino with a troubled past.
A Times examination of the Chumash gambling enterprise, one of the most profitable in California, found that:
* At least seven of 16 tribal members who have served on the gaming commission during the past decade have backgrounds that almost certainly would preclude them from working at, much less regulating, casinos in Nevada and New Jersey.
One commissioner resigned in July after The Times asked about his past convictions for robbery, burglary and theft. Another former regulator once fired gunshots near the Chumash bingo hall. A third was elected to the commission after he was fired from a management job in the casino for allegedly molesting female employees.
* Tribal members have been caught taking advantage of their authority on the gaming floor. The tribal chairman once directed a blackjack dealer to provide free chips to his son and other customers. In another case, a tribal member was fired as head of video gaming after it was discovered that slot machine tournaments had been fixed.
* Key security jobs at the Chumash Casino are held by relatives of gaming commissioners -- an arrangement prohibited by casinos in other states. The surveillance unit in recent years has included several officers who are related to members of the Chumash gaming commission and its executive director.
Such problems are "somewhat inevitable when tribes are given the power to regulate themselves," said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School who is a leading authority on gambling and an advisor to state regulators.
Tribal leaders contend that the success of the Chumash Casino shows that their patrons have full confidence in the integrity of the operation. They say their tribe -- the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians -- has taken corrective measures whenever infractions have been uncovered.
