A former worker of Resorts World Las Vegas has filed a lawsuit towards the corporate. He claims the on line casino fired him after he flagged suspicious gamblers who could have been partaking in unlawful transactions.
Former Compliance Director Preston Banks started working on the property in September 2022. Later that yr, the lawsuit claims he found suspicious exercise involving a bunch of worldwide gamblers from Argentina.
The go well with alleges the shoppers’ “sources of funds could not be verified because the businesses listed on their casino credit applications did not exist or could not be located.”
According to native media, Resorts World fired Banks in September 2025 regardless of his efforts for greater than two years to sound the alarm.
Betting Scheme Flagged
The lawsuit particulars Banks’ makes an attempt to warn administration concerning the group of gamblers. In 2023, Banks requested supervisors and the property’s anti-money laundering (AML) committee to ban third-party marker funds by three prospects. Supervisors went by way of with that suggestion, in response to the lawsuit.
The go well with alleges that the next yr, the scheme concerned between 60 and 150 gamblers. The group included gamers from Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Italy, and Spain. The lawsuit factors to suspicious betting exercise that ought to have raised money-laundering considerations.
“Defendant Resorts World’s own records describe the group’s suspicious activities as including unverified source of funds, credit fraud, repeated third-party market payments, coordinated or ‘coached’ wagering, chip passing, chip walking, bankrolling, minimal gaming, offsetting bets, and bill-stuffing,” the lawsuit reads partly.
In complete, workers filed greater than 50 suspicious exercise reviews by September 2024. According to Banks, the Bank Secrecy Act requires the reviews. The lawsuit alleges administration regarded the opposite manner because the playing actions continued.
“Banks’ supervisors and the AML committee repeatedly minimized concerns, delayed review, and took incomplete or inadequate action under Resorts World’s AML Policy and related controls,” the lawsuit alleges.
Players Banned, Banks Fired
The former compliance officer filed an in depth report concerning the scheme. The property then banned 28 individuals. The property referred these gamers’ accounts to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office for assortment of about $12 million in unpaid on line casino credit score.
Resorts World fired Banks later that month. That got here regardless of bringing the scheme to mild and regularly warning about what was occurring, in response to his attorneys.
“Banks responded that he had detected the scheme and protested that RWLV was terminating the person who had identified it, stating, ‘I detected it, you’re killing the author,’” the go well with says. “HR Director [Bob] Napierala responded that the decision to terminate Plaintiff Banks came from ‘the C-suite’ and that no one else on the Compliance team had been terminated.”
In December, Banks filed a whistleblower-retaliation criticism with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration below the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020.
The whistleblower additionally filed related complaints with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Justice Department’s Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program.
The lawsuit additionally says that Banks met with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. He instructed the board {that a} report on the scheme on the property had been modified, deleting key info. The property denied any wrongdoing.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. Banks has elected to file this frivolous action relating to the termination of his employment,” an organization consultant instructed native media. “Resorts World strongly denies the allegations and characterizations in the lawsuit. We look forward to addressing these claims in the appropriate forum and have no further comment.”
Previous AML Concerns
This isn’t the primary time Resorts World has confronted allegations over permitting suspicious gamblers to function on the property. The NGCB fined the on line casino $10.5 million in March 2025 for anti-money laundering violations, the second-largest levy towards a on line casino in state historical past.
The penalties got here after a criticism filed in August 2024 alleging the property engaged in unsuitable operations. That included permitting unlawful bookies Mathew Bowyer and Damien LeForbes to wager giant sums of cash on the property.
The fee stated the on line casino had “an overall lack of control within Resorts World and acceptance among Resorts World executives of a culture where information of suspicious or illegal activity, at a minimum, is negligently disregarded, or at worst, willfully ignored for financial gain, given the overall pressure for Resorts World to generate revenue, and that the bonuses of Resorts World executives are directly tied to the financial success of Resorts World.”
LeForbes later pled responsible to federal money-laundering costs and working an unlawful playing enterprise. In May, the Nevada Gaming Commission positioned Bowyer within the “black book” of gamblers. He is banned from all casinos anyplace within the state.
According to investigators, Bowyer ran “unsuitable” actions in Las Vegas casinos, making “cash front” deposits involving thousands and thousands of {dollars}. The bookie additionally took sports activities wagers from Ippei Mizuhara, the previous interpreter for MLB star Shohei Ohtani. Mizuhara stole thousands and thousands of {dollars} from Ohtani to position bets with Bowyer.
AML considerations have led to some adjustments within the poker trade as nicely. Operators just like the World Series of Poker have required that high-stakes gamers account for his or her cash. As a end result, some imagine crypto will develop into an even bigger a part of the trade as a result of operators can hand AML obligations to third-party processors.
