January 2020 Meeting

The next meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, January 16th at the downtown Capital City Club.

The topic for January is gambling in Georgia. As you may know, several gambling bills will be in play during the coming session of the legislature. We have two distinguished co-speakers, each presenting a differing viewpoint. We’ll give each speaker 12 minutes to present and then we’ll engage them in Q&A. The order of presentation was determined by a coin flip.

The first speaker is businessman, legislator and lobbyist E. Culver “Rusty” Kidd. From 2009 to 2017, Mr. Kidd was a member of the Georgia House, representing Baldwin County and a portion of Putnam County. He was the state legislature’s sole elected Independent. He is president of Middle Georgia Management Services and runs the lobbying firm, Kidd & Associates. Mr. Kidd attended the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship, graduating with a BS in finance.

The second speaker is University of Illinois professor Dr. John Kindt. Dr. Kindt has published a number of academic articles on gambling and is the co-author of the United States International Gambling Report. He was influential in the passage of the U.S. Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 and other federal and state statues. Dr. Kindt has a BA in Business from the College of William and Mary, an MBA from the University of Georgia, and an SJD from the University of Virginia.