The Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) has entered into an agreement with MGM Resorts International in which MGM will pay an $8.5m fine for allowing illegal bookmakers to do business in its Las Vegas casinos and failing in its anti-money laundering efforts.
In a Friday statement, MGM Resorts International said: “MGM Resorts takes its compliance responsibilities seriously and cooperated fully with the Nevada Gaming Control Board to resolve this matter.”
gamble and operate his illegal gambling business at the casino
The 29-page complaint against MGM accuses the MGM Grand and The Cosmopolitan, specifically then-MGM Grand President Scott Sibella and two casino hosts, of not only allowing former minor league baseball player Wayne Nix to gamble and operate his illegal gambling business at the casino, but also encouraging it. The activity took place from 2015 to 2018.
Nix ran his gambling operation primarily online, but he would often travel from his home in California to Las Vegas with cash from the illegal business. He would deposit the cash at MGM casinos and would sometimes conduct transactions in person.
Sibella and casino hosts showered Nix with comps, including free food and lodging and golf trips with top-level executives “to further encourage Nix to patronize the casino and spend his illicit proceeds at the casino.”
Eight of the ten counts directed by the NGCB toward MGM were about Nix, while one was about Illegal bookmaker Matthew Bowyer, the person with whom Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, lost $17m of the slugger’s money.
The $8.5m fine is the fourth-largest the NGCB has ever issued. The largest was $20m in 2019 against Wynn Resorts for a sexual harassment complaint against company founder Steve Wynn.
