Resorts World $10.5 Million Fine a Black Eye to Vegas

Gambling911.com was among the few websites covering the money laundering probe involving one or more casino executives and properties reaching back all the way to the late summer of 2023.  Make no mistake about it, Dana Gentry of the Vegas Current has been nothing short of sensational in her coverage of this story.  She was the first to confirm the probe. 

The Las Vegas Review Journal was mostly missing in action for reasons we can't quite understand.  They began reporting on this matter some months later, well after the Nevada Current took the ball and ran with it.

Robin Hood 702, RJ Cipriani, was dead on with much of what he reported on Twitter during the early days of this investigation.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board was also a little late to the party. remaining silent regarding the prosecution of casino executive Scott Sibella by federal officials out of California, Dana Gentry of the Nevada Current reported at the time.  We would come to learn that Resorts World permitted known illegal bookies to play in their establishment and the dominoes were about to fall.

Prior to the Current's shocking confirmation, GCB's George Assad told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the allegations “against Resorts World and its president, Scott Sibella, were found to be unsubstantiated.”  During this time, the LVRJ remained mum.

Around six months after Assad's assertion in August 2023, federal investigators issued a subpoena to Resorts World for records of cash and wire transactions. The company swiftly fired Sibella a month later, saying he violated company policy and Sibella would go on to enter into a plea agreement where he admitted to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) that requires financial institutions and casinos to report any suspicious transactions.

Sibella failed to report that a convicted Southern California bookie, Wayne Nix, paid a marker at the MGM Grand with $120,000 in cash in 2018.  Sibella would tell unidentified law enforcement agents he “heard that Nix was in the booking business” but didn’t want to know the source of his money. “I stay out of it. If we know, we can’t allow them to gamble.”

He would later go on to blame the violations on subordinates, in particular casino hosts, who failed to file a suspicious activity report (SAR).

“You don’t have to take my word for it. You only need to look and see that since the investigation into these issues, MGM Resorts eighty-sixed many bookmakers that had been gambling in its casinos — and some of them for over 20 years,” Sibella said in a prepared statement while appearing before regulators.

MGM and the Cosmopolitan, where Nix also gambled, entered non-prosecution agreements with the feds and paid a collective $7.45 million fine, Gentry reports.

“It just looks like the GCB had to come out or look totally incompetent,” said Richard Schuetz, a veteran casino executive and former California gaming regulator who suggests the GCB may intentionally be loosening the lid on its investigation. “It looks like they slept through this.”

The Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday agreed to a stipulated agreement and $10.5 million fine against Resorts World Las Vegas, which faced multiple counts of failing to comply with anti-money laundering laws by allowing known illegal sports bookies to gamble on dozens of occasions.

“We’ve got a dream team of governance on the board here in front of us today. You’ve all had extensive Wikipedia pages,” Gaming Commissioner and former Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki gushed of the newly-minted Resorts World board of directors seated in the front row – former Gov. Brian Sandoval (who Krolicki served under as Lt. Gov.), former Gaming Control Board chairman A.G. Burnett, and former MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren, who also chairs the gaming commission of the United Arab Emirates.

Resorts World attorney Erica Okerberg called the revamped leadership “Resorts World 2.0.”

The new board is intended to right the $4.3 billion listing ship that opened on the Las Vegas Strip in 2021, The Nevada Current noted.

But the damage is already done.  This is a huge black eye for the Las Vegas gambling industry, which for decades has worked hard to clean up its image. 

Las Vegas's early reputation was significantly shaped by organized crime, with mobsters like "Bugsy" Siegel and Meyer Lansky playing a key role.

As for Sibella, it's unlikely he'll be working in Vegas for the foreseeable future.  He lost his gaming license back in December.