Ducks Won’t Gamble on Las Vegas : Hockey: City is out of running for Disney team’s minor league affiliate.

Las Vegas, which is trying to promote itself as a family tourist destination, has been eliminated from consideration as the home of the Mighty Ducks’ minor league affiliate because “Disney and gambling are incongruous,” Disney Sports Enterprises President Tony Tavares said Thursday.

“You think about gambling and you think about Disney, and something doesn’t match,” said Tavares, saying the decision was based both on Las Vegas’ image and the proximity of the minor league team to the gambling industry.

“We’re not trying to insult anybody here. I have nothing personally against Las Vegas. This whole issue is about gambling and sports.”

Las Vegas was among about six cities under consideration by the Ducks. San Diego has emerged as a front-runner.

Tavares said the fact there is no NFL, NBA or major league baseball team in Las Vegas is a reflection of professional sports’ unease with the city’s gambling industry. However, the San Diego Padres’ triple-A affiliate is in Las Vegas, and is co-owned by Hank Stickney, also the leader of the group that owns the city’s International Hockey League franchise, which will begin play next fall. Las Vegas bookmakers do not post odds on events involving local teams.

Las Vegas tourism and commerce officials expressed dismay at Disney’s reasoning. The city’s recent promotional efforts have trumpeted the impending arrival of several major hotel and family entertainment complexes--including the MGM Grand hotel and its adjacent 33-acre theme park, the Egyptian-themed Luxor Hotel, pirate-themed Treasure Island and Grand Slam Canyon, a domed park created by Circus Circus.

“It’s an unfortunate attitude,” said Mark Smith, president of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. “It seems to me that the billion-dollar investment by MGM and the theme park fly in the face of that--as if gaming were our only attraction in this town.”

The Ducks’ decision apparently was something of a turnabout. Dan Spellens, director of franchise development for the teams owned by Stickney, said the Ducks solicited a formal proposal from him last week.

“What I find to be somewhat odd is that we have been having ongoing conversations with Disney for several months, and I’m not aware that the city of Las Vegas has moved in the last few days or that its image has changed for some reason in the last few days,” said Spellens, who was told Las Vegas had been ruled out only after Tavares mentioned it in response to an audience question at an Orange County Sports Assn. luncheon.

“I’m really surprised the Disney Company would choose to single out Las Vegas as not having an image that fits with Disney,” Spellens said. “To me, that’s a real slap in the face to the city and people of Las Vegas. . . . There are about a million people who live in the greater Las Vegas area, and they are just as hungry for wholesome, well-presented family entertainment and sports as any other city. Just because their primary industry is tourism and includes gambling (doesn’t change that).”

Spellens pointed out that the Kings have played an exhibition game in Las Vegas, the Lakers moved a playoff game to the Thomas & Mack Center last April during the civil unrest in Los Angeles, and five major league baseball teams played exhibition games there this month.

“To suggest placing some kind of pro team in Las Vegas constitutes some violation of professional sports ethics is, I believe, short-sighted,” he said.

Many Las Vegans bristle at the city’s pervasive image as Sin City, and proudly point to its new family attractions.

A spokesman for the Luxor Hotel was quoted in Sunday’s Times travel section saying that “a few years down the road, Las Vegas will have more to offer than Orlando”--Disney’s tourist centerpiece.