Wynn Las Vegas Settles Money Transfer Case for $130M with US Dept. of Justice 

Giant luxury casino resort Wynn Las Vegas has settled a federal case involving questionable money transfers.

This week, Wynn paid $130 million to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). It is the largest settlement fee from a Nevada casino operator in any legal case.

Wynn Las Vegas is the flagship casino resort of Wynn Resorts. It also operates Encore Las Vegas, Encore Boston Harbor, and three casinos in Macau. 

Wynn Las Vegas admitted no wrongdoing on its behalf. However it agreed to pay the $130 million involved in a series of transactions that the DoJ found suspicious. It agreed former employees violated the law and its own internal policies, for which it agreed to pay restitution.

The DoJ said that Wynn Las Vegas did not properly investigate funds transferred to it by several worldwide agents. Several of its former employees used convoluted money transferring tactics to enable gamblers that may not otherwise been allowed to gamble in the U.S.

The casino resort has “entered into a nonprosecution agreement (the “NPA”) with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California and the United States Department of Justice (the “DOJ”)…” the operator wrote in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The action resolves “…the previously-disclosed investigation into various transactions at Wynn Las Vegas relating to certain patrons who reside or operate in foreign jurisdictions which were facilitated by former employees, agents and other third parties that were unlicensed money transmitting businesses, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1960.”

The Investigation

The cases of alleged money laundering by former Wynn Las Vegas employees occurred between 2014 and 2018. 

Wynn says it has made substantial remedial changes to its employee conduct rules since the incidents. 

A release from the DoJ elaborated on some of the methods used by the casino resort’s former agents. They included using a proxy gambler who would place bets on behalf of an otherwise restricted or potentially unlawful high limit bettor elsewhere in the building. 

They also took millions in bets from one gambler, who at the time was recently released from six years in Chinese prison on money laundering and other financial crime charges. The DoJ release said that the wide ranging investigation has otherwise resulted in seven criminal convictions for money laundering charges separate to the exact cases involving Wynn Las Vegas.

The Settlement 

Wynn issued a statement on the settlement.

“In reaching the resolution set forth in the NPA, the DOJ took into account the historical nature of the transactions at issue; Wynn Las Vegas’s cooperation with the DOJ’s multi-year investigation; that Wynn Las Vegas no longer employs or is affiliated with any of the individuals implicated in the transactions at issue; and Wynn Las Vegas’s extensive remedial measures, many of which were undertaken prior to the parties entering into the NPA,” the operator wrote in its SEC filing. 

Although this settlement of $130 million is exceptionally large, Wynn Resorts is no stranger to paying some hefty legal fees. Its namesake founder, Steve Wynn, departed as the head of the company in 2018 after a series of sexual misconduct allegations. 

The Nevada Gaming Control Board fined Wynn Resorts $20 million over failure to act on allegations made long before they were made public and Wynn resigned. It also fined Wynn himself $10 million and barred him from holding any position in a Nevada gambling company after a protracted legal case. He has always claimed innocence against all the accusations. 

Encore Boston Harbor was also made to pay $35.5 million by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, as it did not disclose the ongoing sexual misconduct case during its license application process in the state. 

In separate recent news, Wynn Las Vegas rival Resorts World Las Vegas is also being investigated on money laundering charges by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.