Bowyer, Gon, Burnett: Las Vegas Sands scandals plagued its final decade on the Strip

Last week, news broke that the Venetian had agreed to a $7.2 million anti-money laundering fine with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, for failures related to illegal bookmaker Mathew Bowyer that spanned both the current owner, Apollo Global Management, as well as the original owner, Las Vegas Sands. In retrospect, the Bowyer scandal capped a somewhat tumultuous final decade in Las Vegas for the world’s largest casino operator.

When Sands sold the Venetian to Apollo in 2021, it represented the company’s formal exit from its namesake market. The operator now focuses exclusively on Macau and Singapore after stalled US expansion quests in Texas and New York. Sands is still headquartered in Las Vegas but its casinos are sold and its digital arm, which had been based in Las Vegas, was shuttered last year.

According to the board’s investigation, Bowyer, who has now been at the centre of $34 million worth of combined AML fines across four Las Vegas operators, was a patron of the Venetian since 1999, its opening year. But the crux of the AML violations came in 2019-21, at the tail end of Sands’ ownership.

The casino failed to substantiate his source of funds beginning in 2019 and did not formally ban him until 2024, long after Apollo had taken over. From 2019-21 Bowyer made 30 trips to the Venetian, deposited $22.3 million and lost $3.6 million, according to the NGCB. With those findings now unearthed, it adds to what was a litany of negative developments for Sands in the years leading to the Venetian sale.

The NGCB declined to comment on the matter until it is considered by the Nevada Gaming Commission. Sands did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Bowyer case similar to Ye Gon

By the time Bowyer returned to the Venetian in 2019 after some years away, he was one the biggest illegal bookmakers in the US. He is best known as the bookmaker for Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani who embezzled millions from the MLB star to wager with Bowyer.

A Sands host initially reported “some concern” about Bowyer’s return to the casino, but an internal review subsequently downplayed those concerns and allowed him to gamble, per the NGCB. The board’s investigation also showed that a third-party enhanced due diligence report from 2021 again raised concerns that were ignored, and Bowyer’s host by that time had “actual knowledge” of his bookmaking activities but failed to report him.

These findings are perhaps more notable when added to a 2013 case involving another dubious patron, alleged drug trafficker Zhenli Ye Gon. Gon, who was extradited to Mexico in 2016 on trafficking charges, was “the largest all-cash, up-front gambler the Venetian-Palazzo had ever had” when he frequented the casino in the early 2000s, according to federal prosecutors.

As with Bowyer, Sands failed to properly vet Gon and his funds — specifically, the company failed to file enough suspicious activity reports when Gon transferred approximately $45 million and deposited $13 million worth of cashier’s checks at the Venetian from 2005-2007. No SARs were filed until after that period, in April 2007.

Sands eventually forfeited $47.4 million to the US government in 2013 in relation to the Gon case, avoiding criminal prosecution in doing so. At that time, prosecutors said Sands “made extensive efforts to enhance its internal compliance program,” which was cited as a reason why criminal charges were not pursued.

Reid intervened on Sands’ behalf

In a statement announcing the Gon forfeiture, US Attorney André Birotte Jr. said Sands “faced the very real possibility of a federal criminal case” prior to the non-prosecution agreement. Years later, it now seems that Sands and founder Sheldon Adelson pulled some strings in high places to help secure that outcome.

Harry Reid, the longtime Nevada Senator who was serving as Senate majority leader when the Gon case was concluded, aided the company’s fortunes in some unknown way, according to emails published by journalist and Reid biographer Jon Ralston.

On the day the forfeiture was announced, Reid’s deputy David Krone forwarded him the announcement. Reid responded: “Wouldn’t have happened wo my help. We will see (if) it was appreciated.” Krone then asked the Senator, “does Adelson know what you did?”, to which Reid said: “Yes, he called me last evening.”

Both Reid and Adelson passed away in 2021 at age 82 and 87, respectively.

The Burnett-Laxalt debacle

Sandwiched in between the Gon and Bowyer cases was another high-profile scandal involving Sands and Nevada politics. It began in 2010, when former Sands China CEO Steven Jacobs filed a wrongful termination against the company, alleging that Adelson pressured him to use “leverage” against Chinese government officials.

In 2015, Sands asked the NGCB to file an amicus brief on its behalf in the still-ongoing lawsuit. Sands asked again in 2016, and after the board declined again, Nevada’s then-Attorney General Adam Laxalt met personally with then-NGCB Chair AG Burnett to try and persuade Burnett to file the brief. Burnett secretly recorded the conversation and shared it federal authorities, which kicked off a massive political ethics investigation.

“There was a lot of pressure placed on Mr. Laxalt to have the Gaming Control Board file an amicus, and he indeed asked us to file that amicus, and I said no,” Burnett told regulators at a licensing hearing in March of this year. “I was extremely proud about that situation and how it was handled.”

2016 was an expensive year for Sands. In the span of two months from April-May, the company:

• Settled the Jacobs lawsuit for “more than $75 million”, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
• Paid a $2 million fine to Nevada regulators for violations stemming from the Gon case as well as accounting errors involving a Chinese consultant.
• Paid an additional $9 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission for the accounting errors. Sands had “inaccurate books and records” for $62 million paid to the consultant to “obscure the company’s role in certain business transactions”, per the SEC.

In a statement following the SEC fine, Adelson said Sands was committed to fostering a “world-class compliance program that builds on the strong policies we already have in place”.