Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg said his company is “embarrassed” for its connection to an imprisoned illegal bookmaker.
Key Takeaways
- Resorts World Las Vegas and MGM Resorts International paid nearly $20 million in combined fines.
- Bowyer was found to have offered illegal gambling mostly related to sports betting.
- Caesars is spending twice as much as it did seven years ago on its anti-money laundering unit.
Nevada gaming regulators decided on the $7.8-million fine earlier in the week following an investigation into Bowyer, who had repeatedly failed to verify his income source and was labelled “high risk” in 2019.
Despite warning signs, Caesars and other casino operators allowed the man to continue gambling at their facilities. The investigation eventually concluded that Bowyer lost as much as $3 million at Caesars in 2017, part of a seven-year run.
The findings revealed Caesars violated anti-money laundering laws designed to identify and prevent individuals from losing large sums of money without verifying their legitimacy.
“(The Bowyer case) has been a stain on the state,” Reeg said, according to the Nevada Independent. “We're embarrassed that we're a part of it.”
Reeg denied claims that Caesars knowingly let Bowyer wager illicit funds at its facilities, thereby violating federal laws, to claim his gambling losses as their winnings.
“(Caesars would) never sacrifice compliance for revenue,” he said. “There is no customer that's worth illegitimate profits. We didn't catch Bowyer, and we should have.”
Caesars’ settlement cost them three times more than they made from Bowyer, according to Nevada Gaming Control Board chairman Mike Dreitzer.
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Caesars ramps up money laundering security
Dreitzer, who has been the board chairman for four months, said Caesars removed several high-ranking members and bolstered its compliance protocols in the wake of the Bowyer scandal. Caesars representatives who attended Thursday’s meeting confirmed an increase in training and awareness for employees.
The chairman also said the company’s change in ownership in 2020 was taken into account when considering the fine.
“They had already inherited a significant portion of this (Bowyer relationship),” Dreitzer said. “That's not an excuse. That is just another factor in how we reached the ($7.8 million).”
Caesars representatives claim the company’s anti-money laundering unit is larger than it was before the incident. Spending in this area has doubled since 2017, around the time Bowyer began gambling at Caesars.
“We will do everything possible to prevent us from coming before you ever again,” said Caesars chairman Gary Carano, whose father helped author Nevada’s first gaming compliance rules in the 1970s.
Bowyer gets 1 year in prison, $1.6M fine
Bowyer pleaded guilty in August to federal charges of running an illegal gambling enterprise, money laundering, and filing a false tax return, which supposedly supplied him with the money he gambled at the casinos.
“(Bowyer ran) an unlicensed and illegal bookmaking business that focused on sports betting and violated a California law that prohibits bookmaking,” authorities said.
The court ordered Bowyer to pay more than $1.6 million in restitution to the IRS. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California.
