Resorts World Dinged $10.5 Million by Regulators, Layoffs Commence

By Scott Roeben, on March 28 2025
4 min read 5 comments
Las Vegas

So much has happened at the beleaguered Resorts World, none of which will affect your visit, but we have to write about it because it’s all so peculiar.

We’re lumping two bits of news into one story: 1) Resorts World was fined $10.5 million because it let unsavory folks gamble there, you know, like most casinos in Las Vegas do. 2) Layoffs are happening at Resorts World, which we told you was going to happen, but you don’t listen. The rumor is they’re just getting started.

Read on for a hastily slapped-together overview of all the drama, along with rumors and speculation you won’t find anywhere else.

You want casino resort drama, you’ve got it.

So, the fine.

It’s pretty big. The $10.5 million fine is the second largest in Nevada history. The biggest fine was $20 million paid by Wynn Resorts in 2019 over the Steve Wynn kerfuffle.

While $10.5 million seems like a lot of money, it represents a fraction of what the resort made by allowing illegal bookmakers to gamble there. Most of the folks we talk to say it was a slap on the wrist.

Our sources say the original fine being considered was $42 million.

How did the fine end up being $10.5 million? A.G. Burnett. “Whodat?” you say in that adorable way you say things.

Our understanding per a source is A.G. Burnett has been working with Resorts World since it opened and was responsible for setting up the compliance procedures for the resort. He was Chairman of the Resorts World compliance committee.

At one time, Burnett was chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. He’s now a member of the (wait for it) Resorts World Board of Directors. In Vegas, it’s good to know a guy who knows people.

Also on the Resorts World Board of Directors? Brian Sandoval. Sandoval is not only the former Governor of Nevada, he was chair of the (wait for it) Nevada Gaming Commission. Burnett was appointed chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board by Sandoval in 2012.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board makes recommendations about fines, the Nevada Gaming Commission signs off on the recommendations.

This isn’t rocket science. Vegas is always gonna Vegas.

If you gambled as much as Conrad does, you’d get your own hotel tower, too.

One of the most Las Vegas things about this circus is, as part of the settlement, Resorts World “neither admits to, nor denies the allegations.” It’s sort of like how Steve Wynn was definitely innocent but resigned, the 100% sure sign of complete innocence.

Like we said, this is all very odd.

Frankly, the expectation casinos act as private investigators seems unreasonable. If someone walks into a yacht showroom and plunks down a million bucks for a boat, are the yacht people expected to find out where the money came from?

There are so many loopholes and end runs around laundering regulations, it’s laughable. Nobody talks about it because the casino industry has to appear beyond reproach. It’s worth nothing the Gaming Control Board and Gaming Commission exist to protect the casino industry, which is why everything is so top secret, with many scandals never seeing the light of day, especially if the individuals involved are connected.

A lot of very shady people gamble at Las Vegas casinos, and we aren’t just talking about Dana White.

The disgraced former president of Resorts World, Scott Sibella, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “The two bookmakers that put Resorts World in this situation gambled at all the major casinos in Las Vegas for many years, before, during and after Resorts World opened.”

It’s literally right there in human words.

Sibella was a fall guy. Guilty of far more than he pled guilty to, but singled out while others have escaped scrutiny.

For example, Jim Murren was at the helm of MGM Resorts (Sibella worked under him) when similar alleged money laundering shenanigans went down. Murren is currently (wait for it) Chairman of the Resorts World Board of Directors.

We are not making this up.

We are also not making up the fact Jim Murren was most recently CEO and Executive Chairman of the Ritz Carlton (wait for it) Yacht Collection. Ah, the circularity of the universe.

Anyhoo, the saga is still not over, as word is the feds are still poking around and may impose their own punishments on Resorts World.

We can’t report on this pivotal moment in the Resorts World telenovela without a mention of R.J. Cipriani, an enigmatic character who played a key role in this saga. Cipriani, known as @RobinHood702 on Twitter, is an unfiltered and relentless force of nature who made it his mission to right what he saw as wrongs at Resorts World after a perceived slight when he was arrested for taking another player’s phone (Cipriani claimed the guest was harassing him). From that point on, Cipriani was on a mission to dethrone Sibella and doggedly raise questions about dubious practices at Las Vegas casinos.

Journalist Dana Gentry has done a great job of chronicling this cavalcade of WTF, including Cipriani’s Beatrix Kiddo-style part in it. Here’s Gentry’s story about the Resorts World fine.

As for the layoffs, we were the first to share the unfortunate news Resorts World would be thinning its ranks. The resort confirmed 50 people have already been let go. Our sources say this is the first wave of terminations.

These layoffs are in addition to a purge of Sibella-era executives at Resorts World (which we told you about first). Gaming described those forced exits as “wholesale changes in executive leadership.”

While the layoffs coincided with the fine by regulators, this isn’t that. This is related to business levels.

Resorts World continues to struggle mightily, the rumor is Jim Murren was brought on to help facilitate a sale of Resorts World, but the resort has yet to acknowledge that’s the plan.

All that said, Resorts World is a gorgeous resort and we hate hearing about layoffs. It’s easy to forget Genting Group, the owner of Resorts World headquartered in Malaysia, invested $4.3 billion in building the resort on the long-neglected bones of the failed Echelon site (before that, Stardust). A casino is always preferable to an empty lot. See also Riviera and Tropicana. The only exception to this rule is Jerry’s Nugget, as an empty lot would be much, much better and would contain far fewer communicable diseases.

Yes, Resorts World has the tightest slots in America, other than at the Las Vegas airport, but nobody’s perfect.

Few are hoping to see Resorts World fail and the resort has a lot of potential once it gets its act together. It’s unclear if the current hired guns can right the ship, but we weren’t going to end this story without a very mixed metaphor, so there it is.

Update (4/4/25): Here’s a great story covering the WTF in more detail. In Las Vegas, one can never have too many faces or palms.