The gaming industry reclaimed its place atop Nevada’s political donor hierarchy during the 2024 election cycle, donating more than $2 million to state lawmakers.

It’s the first time since the 2018 cycle that casinos and other gaming groups donated more than any other industry, and the most they have donated in a single cycle since The Nevada Independent began tracking contributions to lawmakers in the 2016 election cycle, reflective of the continued influence of the state’s top money maker as it prepared for the 2025 legislative session. 

It’s also part of an upward trajectory in political activity that includes the 2022 creation of a PAC affiliated with the Nevada Resort Association.

“Industry felt strongly that we needed to step to the plate in a sense and become more active and more voiceful in at least what we think is either right policy, wrong policy or a good legislator,” said Nick Vassiliadis, the political director for R&R Partners and a lobbyist for the Nevada Resort Association

The industry received a win last week when Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, announced his intention to veto a bill that would reinstate daily room cleaning requirements in hotels, an effort that resorts have strongly opposed.

The industry is also opposing a constitutional amendment to repeal the state’s ban on lotteries — which passed in 2023 but has not yet been set for a hearing this year — but does not have many other priorities, other than its typical goal of maintaining consistency in laws that affect tourists, Vassiliadis said.

More than 60 percent of the industry’s contributions went to Democrats — who hold 40 of the Legislature’s 63 seats — but the median Republican legislator received much more from the industry ($29,500) than the median Democratic legislator ($17,250). Five legislators, all Democrats, received no money from the industry.

The analysis is part of The Nevada Independent’s “Follow the Money” series, which explores the industries that gave the most money to state legislators during the 2024 election cycle and their goals for the 2025 session. The series results from a manual categorization of about 11,000 contributions from donors who gave more than $200 throughout the cycle.

Nevada law prohibits donors from giving more than $10,000 to a single candidate, but some gaming groups were able to easily surpass that limit by contributing through affiliated entities. 

The gaming industry saw a downturn in its share of contributions to Nevada legislators during the 2020 cycle, as it grappled with a pandemic that decimated its operations, but it bounced back during the 2022 cycle when it was the third-most prolific donor, behind labor and real estate groups.

Read more: Follow the Money: Which industries gave the most to Nevada lawmakers?

Top recipients

The top recipient of gaming dollars this election cycle was Sen. Rochelle Nguyen (D-Las Vegas), who brought in more than $213,000.

Last year, Nguyen faced a prominent primary challenge from a candidate backed by Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents thousands of hospitality workers. Almost all of her donations came before the primary election. 

The challenge stemmed from Nguyen’s support for a 2023 bill that ended the pandemic-era daily room cleaning requirements in Nevada hotels. The bill passed with strong support from the gaming industry and opposition from the Culinary Union.

In an interview, Nguyen defended her support of the bill — saying the pandemic-era requirements were not as necessary in 2023 — but said that she thinks the industry’s support of her goes beyond any single policy, citing her experience as vice chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which sees many gaming-related bills.

“I had already built up a lot of those relationships just working on policy in that area,” Nguyen said.

She also believes her voting record is more favorable toward unions than the resort industry, touting her work with the Service Employees International Union to improve nursing ratios in Nevada.

“You're not gonna be able to buy my vote, and hopefully that's what my reputation is,” she said.

Notably, the Republican who received the most money from the industry was Sen. Lori Rogich (R-Las Vegas), who is sponsoring the bill to bring back daily room cleaning requirements that Lombardo said he would not sign. She raised about $117,000 from the industry, about half of which came after she won the general election.

In an interview, Rogich said she is supportive of the gaming industry, citing her answers on a candidate questionnaire from the Nevada Resort Association in which she opposed a state-run lottery — the same position as gaming groups — and said that the industry is “the engine that keeps [the state] going.”

However, she also noted that she has long supported daily room cleaning for its potential public safety benefits. In particular, she thinks it can be helpful in cracking down on sex trafficking and the illicit cannabis market (she is a regulatory attorney for the cannabis industry), referring to a 2024 UNLV report that determined restrictions on cannabis operations or deliveries around the Las Vegas Strip have created an opening for illegal cannabis sales.

“If we want to maintain our reputation as one of the great destinations, I don’t think it’s too much trouble,” Rogich said. “We’re not going to agree on all issues, but for the most part we do.”

Elsewhere, Democrats made up seven of the top 10 recipients of money from the gaming industry, with Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) rounding out the top three.

However, despite Democrats’ receiving more money, the gaming industry made up less of their total money raised (12 percent) compared with Republican legislators (15 percent).

Additionally, six of the 10 candidates who received the highest share of donations from the industry were Republicans.

Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union, said in an interview that gaming’s high level of donations to Democrats could raise questions about their legislative priorities.

“The real issue out there is cost of living, working class voters,” Pappageorge said. “When we see these kinds of donations to Democrats, the question is, are they going to focus on cost of living issues?”

Vassiliadis said that the group typically does not determine donations based on specific policies.

Instead, it chooses to donate to legislators they feel they can work with and who is a fair decision maker — not expecting any lawmaker to align with gaming all of the time, Vassiliadis said.

“To get too caught up in this bill or that bill, or this issue or that issue, without balancing the totality of a legislative session, we probably feel is short-sighted,” he said.

Top donors

Similar to Nevada political fundraising at large, donations from the gaming industry were heavily concentrated at the top, with five businesses making up more than half of all money donated.

MGM Resorts International, whose contributions come from its corporate offices as well as many of its properties, led the pack with $360,000 donated, about 85 percent of which went to Democrats. It’s a significant increase from the 2022 cycle, when MGM gave $277,000, and the 2020 cycle, when it gave just $42,000 amid the pandemic.

The second-largest donor was Station Casinos and its majority stockholders — Vice Chairman Lorenzo and Chairman and CEO Frank Fertitta III  — which collectively gave more than $247,000. Rounding out the top three was Boyd Gaming, which made up nearly 10 percent of total industry contributions, a higher share than in the past two cycles.

Miriam Adelson, the majority stockholder of Las Vegas Sands and conservative megadonor, donated $21,000, all of which went to Republicans except for $2,500 to Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas). Altogether, 72 percent of the donations from Adelson and the Las Vegas Sands went to Republicans, a number only exceeded among top donors by South Point Hotel and Casino, which gave 78 percent of its donations to Republicans.

Outside of gaming companies themselves, the Nevada Resort Association, an advocacy group for Nevada resorts, donated more than $192,000 in the 2024 cycle, good for fourth overall. This included donations from the association itself and its PAC, which launched in 2022 to “recruit, assess, endorse, and elect state legislative candidates.”

Though the group fell short of its goals that cycle, Vassiliadis said this launch was an effort to “catch up to where a lot of the other industries or interest groups in the state have been operating.”

“Regardless how anybody in this building feels about the industry, we still are the lifeblood of the state,” he said.

Sean Golonka contributed data analysis.