"The Black Book and the Mob" will be the topic when UNLV professors Ronald Farrell and Carole Case speak on campus March 5 as part of the University Forum lecture series.

Their presentation is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Classroom Building Complex, Room A-110. University Forum lectures are free and open to the public.

The black book is the document in which state gaming regulators record the names of persons who are banned for life from entering Nevada's casinos.

Farrell and Case, authors of The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada's Casinos, contend that the black book is a melodrama meant to show that the government is cleansing Las Vegas of corruption. Through the black book, gaming regulators have focused public attention on the mob rather than on the multitude of illicit interests already in the gaming industry, according to the pair.

Farrell, a professor of criminal justice and interim director of the School of Social Work, and Case, an associate professor of criminal justice, say they have uncovered evidence of ethnic discrimination by the regulators, including selective prosecution of Italian Americans whose notoriety fits popular "mafia" stereotypes.

The University Forum lecture series is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and underwritten by the UNLV Foundation.

For additional information, on Farrell and Case's presentation, call the criminal justice department at (702) 895-0236.