A new Major League Baseball season has begun, and perhaps Resorts World Las Vegas has found its winning team. It’s certainly paying for it.
This past week, the resort and its parent company agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle a state Gaming Control Board complaint stemming from an ongoing federal investigation into illegal bookmaking and money laundering that exposed a collapse in the casino’s gambling compliance system.
The investigation has been the talk of the Strip for more than two years. The case has exposed regulatory and compliance lapses at multiple resorts and led to the ouster of a longtime gaming industry executive and the conviction of several illegal bookmakers on gambling and money laundering charges.
The stakes remain high in this ballgame, and rumors of the approaching settlement have rattled around the Strip in recent days.
The news coincides with the early start of the Major League Baseball season, offering an international flair with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs playing a two-game series in Japan before capacity crowds at the Tokyo Dome. According to published reports, it was an endless advertisement for the game’s biggest star: Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani.
Baseball and its fans have put Ohtani’s brush with scandal far behind them. Meanwhile, the federal illegal gambling and money laundering investigation that ensnared his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, and bad-hopped from Southern California to the Las Vegas Strip grinds on.
Considered a victim of fraud, Ohtani was cleared of all wrongdoing. His one-time close friend Mizuhara caught a 57-month prison sentence for fraudulently transferring $17 million from the baseball star’s bank account to pay off gambling debts he owed to an illegal bookmaking operation led by Mathew Bowyer.
Bowyer, we’ve learned, managed a 700-customer book. No player was larger than admitted sucker Mizuhara. Bowyer won $40.7 million from Mizuhara in about 27 months. It didn’t stay in the bookie’s pocket long.
He often fed his own gambling jones in Las Vegas. In more than 80 trips to Resorts World Las Vegas, Bowyer blew much of his bankroll, more than $7.9 million. The casino’s management was so user-friendly that he was able to use his wife as his casino marketing hostess.
After looking like it was catering to an illegal bookmaking convention, Resorts World awaited the outcome of the federal investigation and an August state Gaming Control Board complaint. Even after its major management shakeup, Resorts World was expected to pay millions to resolve the federal investigation and the Nevada action. The question was, how many millions?
Bowyer pleaded guilty in August 2024 to charges of operating an illegal gambling business, money laundering and subscribing a fast tax return. Barring further delays or developments in the investigation — and little would surprise me at this point — Bowyer is now scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 3 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
He isn’t the only convicted bookie still awaiting sentencing.
There’s also former minor-league pitcher Wayne Nix, a former high roller who recruited players from inside Strip resorts, including the MGM Grand and The Cosmopolitan, with the knowledge of casino employees. Getting caught up in the Nix case cost longtime Las Vegas casino executive Scott Sibella his career after pleading guilty to a single violation of the Bank Secrecy Act violation. The two casinos paid a combined $7.5 million to settle their part in the case
Then there’s convicted illegal bookmaker Damien Leforbes, a professional poker player and compulsive gambler who made millions booking bets and blew it all and then some. Sources confirm he dropped approximately $10 million at Resorts World and was known to management as an unlicensed bookmaker. The casino’s management has since changed, and so has Leforbes’ status.
The one-time UNLV baseball recruit wisely entered a guilty plea in October 2024 in connection with a multimillion-dollar illegal bookmaking operation. Like Bowyer and Nix, the case against Leforbes was investigated by California-based IRS and Homeland Security agents and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
He also has yet to be sentenced. In January, Leforbes received more bad news when a federal judge ordered his seven-figure holdings in Bitcoin and other digital currency to be seized. He’s banned from poker rooms and presumably will eventually go to prison. But no matter where he ends up, he’ll always be able to say there was one time that he beat the house.
Resorts World was far from the only casino Leforbes frequented. He was among a group of known bookmakers who were trespassed from the MGM Grand in the wake of the Nix revelations. At a time when he should have been on every casino’s radar, he managed to easily stroll over to The Venetian in November 2023 and take out a six-figure marker. With the Strip revving up for Formula One, he won approximately $300,000, according to reliable sources. On subsequent trips, he lost around $3 million.
It’s all a reminder of how close this investigation has come to several casinos.
When the casino was unable to collect on Leforbes’ credit markers after repeated attempts, it initially referred the unpaid debt to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office Bad Check Unit.
Normally, that decision would make sense. But by 2024 Leforbes was known up and down the Strip as a target in a federal criminal investigation. That would lead some to believe that his income was obtained illegally. If casino officials knew this, or even suspected it, they’d likely have some explaining to do.
After turning over the matter to the bad check unit, the debt was withdrawn. Presumably, the multimillion-dollar debt has been written off. Perhaps it’s better that way.
It’s been said many times that crime doesn’t pay. In this one instance, it didn’t.
Meanwhile, Resorts World is paying its own price. If it can put this scandal in the books and move forward, it might finally be ahead of the game.
John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.
