MGM Resorts: Gaming Commission hails MGM 'culture of compliance' in issuing $8.5 million fine

Nevada Gaming Commissioner Brian Krolicki. (Nevada Gaming Commission stream screengrab) The Nevada Gaming Commission approved a stipulated agreement Thursday stemming from a complaint filed last week by the Nevada Gaming Control Board against MGM Resorts International. The complaint alleged MGM allowed three illegal bookmakers to gamble at the company's properties, despite knowledge of, or suspicions about their sources of income. "One bad apple can ruin years of great work," Nevada Gaming Commissioner and former Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki said moments before the Commission approved the $8.5 million stipulated fine agreed to by MGM. But a few bad apples can prove costly, if not damaging, to the state's largest casino conglomerate, which won praise from regulators, even as they imposed the massive fine for allowing the bookmakers to gamble on more than 700 separate days at the MGM Grand and the Cosmopolitan, which the company later purchased. "2,600 customers in the last 10 years have been banned from your property," Krolicki noted. "46,000 SARS (suspicious activity reports) have been filed. That is a culture of compliance. You should be proud of it." "I do feel that this is a much different situation than what we've seen in other cases," Commissioner Rosa Solis-Rainey said. "MGM did have a strong culture of compliance, not just because they were already in trouble. It's something that you had long before the trouble arose." MGM long sought to be a leader in gaming compliance, said Scott Scherer, a former Gaming Control Board member who represented the company before the commission and serves on its compliance committee. "Unfortunately, this case exposed one of the weaknesses in that program - when employees forget their responsibilities or decide not to fulfill those responsibilities, whether it is because they are going rogue, or because they think that's what their customers, supervisors, or peers would want them to do." Scherer added that "all culpable employees had either left the company voluntarily before these issues came to light, or have been terminated..." "This is not an organization where compliance is a priority until it's inconvenient for the business," MGM General Counsel John McManus told the commission. "Compliance is what makes the business possible." McManus said although MGM could have done better, the company was consistent with industry best practices. "I'm not here to beat up on individual former employees who made poor decisions and mistakes that many of them, all of them really, paid a significant price for," McManus said. Former MGM Grand president Scott Sibella entered a guilty plea in federal court for failing to file a suspicious activity report in 2018. He also agreed to give up his Nevada gaming license for five years. Commissioner Abbi Silver recused herself from the MGM item, citing her long friendship with Sibella. The Current was first to r eport in 2023 that the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service was investigating MGM and Resorts World. The Nevada Gaming Commission last month approved a stipulated agreement in which Resorts World agreed to pay a $10.5 million fine. Federal authorities have yet to take any action against Resorts World.