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Nevada gaming regulators have agreed a settlement that will effectively cost Scott Sibella, the former top executive with Resorts World Las Vegas and MGM Grand, his career in the casino industry almost a year after he pled guilty to criminal charges associated with a money laundering case involving an illegal bookmaker.
The six-page Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) settlement includes a $10,000 penalty to cover the cost of the investigation and will revoke Sibella’s gaming license and his finding of suitability if approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC).
Sibella, his attorney, the three-member control board and state attorney general Aaron Ford signed the settlement agreement on Tuesday (December 10), and the document was posted on the control board’s website late Thursday night.
The commission is scheduled to meet on Thursday (December 19), but the settlement agreement was not listed on the meeting agenda.
“We will not be commenting at this time, and will save any comments for the hearing,” J. Colby Williams, Sibella’s attorney and a partner with Las Vegas law firm Campbell & Williams, told Vixio GamblingCompliance on Friday.
Although the NGCB and Sibella agreed that the complaint addresses his actions while president and COO of MGM Grand, the stipulation for settlement also resolves any responsibility for any potential violation during his employment with Resorts World Las Vegas.
After being let go from the MGM Grand in 2019, Sibella took over as the top executive at Genting's Resorts World Las Vegas, which opened in 2021. He was fired as president and chief operating officer of the resort in 2023.
Also as part of the settlement, Sibella would be placed on the control board’s list of denials, revocations, and findings of unsuitability, which comes with a five-year ban retroactive to December 2023 and precludes him from applying to re-enter Nevada’s gaming industry.
The settlement comes after the NGCB issued a three-count complaint against Sibella in April after he pled guilty in a Los Angeles federal court in January to one count of failure to file suspicious activity reports, a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), while he oversaw the MGM Grand.
Sibella was sentenced on May 8 to probation for a year and was fined $9,500.
Sibella served as president of the MGM Resorts International property from August 2017 until February 2019, during which time he knew that former minor league baseball player turned bookie Wayne Nix operated an illegal sports-betting business but still allowed him to gamble at the casino. Nix was also allowed to pay his debts in cash.
He also failed to report to MGM compliance personnel that Nix was an illegal sports bookmaker. Because of Sibella’s failure to report the suspicious activity by Nix, MGM Grand failed to file at least one SAR regarding Nix’s source of funds in relation to Nix’s cash payments to MGM Grand.
Under the BSA, all casinos earning more than $1m in revenue per year are required to file SARs with the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which inform the agency of any potentially problematic transactions associated with gambling.
Sibella’s settlement with the NGCB is separate from the 12-count complaint filed in August by the control board against the owners and operators of Resorts World Las Vegas.
The complaint alleges the casino won millions of dollars from known illegal bookmakers, including Matt Bowyer, and convicted felons without confirming their source of funds.
The NGCB alleged, “an overall lack of control within Resorts World and acceptance among Resorts World executives of a culture where information of suspicious or illegal activity, at a minimum, is negligently disregarded, or at worst, willfully ignored for financial gain”.
Executives with Resorts World were also pressured to generate revenue, and the bonuses for those executives were directly tied to the financial success of the property, according to the 31-page complaint. Much of the illegal activity took place when Sibella was president of the property.
Bowyer is the bookmaker who took bets from Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter who admitted to stealing more than $16m from Los Angeles Dodgers player Shohei Ohtani due to a gambling addiction.
The NGCB is seeking an undisclosed but likely multimillion-dollar fine against the casino’s Malaysia-based owner Genting Berhad and regulatory action against its owners and operators.
The settlement over Sibella’s conduct at Resorts World Las Vegas comes a week after Genting announced a new CEO and board of directors would oversee the Las Vegas casino.
Veteran gaming industry executive Jim Murren was named chairman of the four-member board overseeing the property, while Alex Dixon, former CEO of Q Casino & Resort and Dubuque Racing Association in Dubuque, Iowa, was named chief executive.
Murren, who was CEO of MGM Resorts International from 2008 to 2020, will be joined on the board by former NGCB chairman A.G. Burnett, casino human resources executive Michelle DiTondo and Genting president Kong Han Tan.
Murren is currently serving as chairman of the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority in the United Arab Emirates, which was founded to oversee the licensing of gaming in the UAE.
