Reported by DANA GENTRY

The Nevada Gaming Control Board, which has remained awkwardly silent on the investigation of Las Vegas casinos and the prosecution of casino executive Scott Sibella by federal officials out of California, has joined the ongoing probe, according to two sources who say they’ve received calls from investigators. 

The federal investigation, first reported by the Current in August, landed the GCB in a pickle. 

A year ago, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s new appointee to the Control Board, George Assad, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the allegations “against Resorts World and its president, Scott Sibella, were found to be unsubstantiated.”

Less than six months later, in August 2023, federal investigators issued a subpoena to Resorts World for records of cash and wire transactions, among other things. The company fired Sibella a month later, saying he violated company policy. Resorts World has not been charged with any crimes. 

In January, Sibella entered a plea agreement, admitting to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) that requires financial institutions, including casinos, to report large or suspicious cash transactions.  

Sibella failed to report that illegal bookmaker Wayne Nix paid a marker at the MGM Grand with $120,000 in cash in 2018. In 2022, according to the plea agreement, Sibella told 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.”  

Sibella is scheduled to be sentenced May 8 in California. Nix’s sentencing has been postponed twice – an indication that he is still cooperating with authorities. 

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

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

The GCB was created in 1955 to regulate Nevada’s fledgling gambling industry and keep the federal government at bay.

A 1985 amendment to the BSA permitted the U.S. Treasury to exempt “casinos in any state whose regulatory system substantially meets the reporting and recordkeeping requirements” of the BSA. Nevada casinos were exempted until 2007, when the state’s Gaming Commission required casinos with annual gross gaming revenue in excess of $1 million to comply with the BSA and its cash transaction reporting requirements. 

Licensees, who are regulated by the GCB, are required to continuously train employees on anti-money laundering protocol.

Read full report: https://nevadacurrent.com/2024/04/22/gaming-control-board-joins-probe-of-money-laundering-in-nevada-casinos/