A member of the Nevada Gaming Control Board has proposed establishing a whistleblower program to reward people who provide information about money laundering occurring within the state’s casinos.
In a public statement at Wednesday’s board meeting, board member George Assad applauded the Nevada Gaming Commission for approving new rules designed to prevent money laundering, but he wants to establish a program to help spot potential wrongdoing even faster by rewarding people who come forward with information that leads to the arrest of guilty parties.
“Maybe a 1 percent reward if it leads to the arrest of a money laundering criminal or a scam,” Assad said. “One percent of $10 million is $100,000. That would be quite an incentive for someone to come forward.”
At its April 23 meeting, the Nevada Gaming Commission unanimously approved changes to Rule 5 on the Operation of Gaming Facilities to require casino regulators to be audited and licensed by regulators, making them responsible for preventing money laundering from occurring.
Three major casino companies — MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment Inc. and Resorts World Las Vegas — paid a total of $26.8 million in fines in 2025 disciplinary actions for money laundering cases.
In addition, California residents Wayne Nix and Mathew Bowyer were placed by the commission on Nevada’s Excluded Persons List in March and April, respectively, for taking illegal sports bets while laundering millions of dollars in illegal betting proceeds.
Assad said the establishment of a whistleblower program would be “an important tool in our toolbox” to prevent money laundering from occurring within the state’s casinos.
“We could have identified situations that occurred with Mr. Nix and Mr. Bowyer,” Assad said. “I would like to incorporate important parts of old Regulation 6A into some new rules that allow the board to receive information about suspicious financial transactions involving whales and large foreign financial transactions in Nevada casinos that are of a suspicious nature.”
Rule 6A, which governed the reporting of currency transactions in the state, was repealed by the commission in 2007 after federal law enforcement officials took the lead role in enforcing anti-money laundering laws.
Assad said lifting that regulation may have been a mistake.
“Why would you want to give up monitoring of financial transactions in Nevada casinos to the federal government?” Assad asked. “They get millions and millions of suspicious activity reports every year from banks and other financial institutions along with ours. So our suspicious activity reports that come from Nevada casinos pretty much get lost in the mix. We would have been much better off if we had oversight of those suspicious activity reports.”
Taking back some of the responsibility handed over to federal investigators, Assad said, would send a strong message that Nevada is capable of policing its own industry.
“It also sends the message to would-be money launderers that they will be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law, period,” he said. “And finally, I hope it sends a message to our licensees that no whale is worth jeopardizing their privileged gaming license.”
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