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 to 2021, 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. Between 2019 and 2021 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 cheques at the Venetian between 2005 and 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 programme”, 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 w