Scott Sibella picked up his share of the checks during his long career as a casino executive.

Some of his friends and allies believe he’s getting stuck with a much bigger tab following a January guilty plea for violating the Bank Secrecy Act in connection with an ongoing federal illegal bookmaking investigation. It’s an offense, they say, that many of Sibella’s former colleagues and co-workers have also committed, and aren’t being asked to pay.

A former president of the MGM Grand and Resorts World Las Vegas, Sibella is scheduled to be sentenced May 8 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles after admitting he knowingly allowed illegal bookmaker Wayne Nix to gamble at MGM and failed to report it or file the appropriate paperwork. Nix gambled millions at the MGM and The Cosmopolitan in a case that has resulted in those casinos agreeing to pay $7.45 million in fines as part of a non-prosecution agreement.

Nix continues to cooperate with IRS Criminal Investigation and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agents, and the case is expanding. This past week, Ippei Mizuhara, former interpreter for professional baseball sensation Shohei Ohtani, was charged with stealing $16 million from the sports superstar. Although prosecutors call it “fraud on a massive scale,” Mizuhara has admitted he stole from his friend Ohtani largely to pay sports gambling debts owed to illegal bookie Matt Bowyer, a former Resorts World Las Vegas high-roller.

Just how close the Bowyer development lands to Sibella remains unclear. For now, the former casino executive has his hands full as he prepares for sentencing. Although the Bank Secrecy Act conviction carries up to a 20-year sentence and possible fines, Sibella is more likely to receive probation and serve as a warning to others in the industry who might be counting their blessings in the wake of current events.

The buck stopped with Sibella, but he wasn’t playing solitaire. As the ironies and oddities stack up, one Sibella supporter adds some context. Sibella wasn’t in charge of casino compliance and didn’t attend the meetings. He failed to fill out an Suspicious Activity Report for Nix, but then Sibella hadn’t filled one out during his four decades in the industry. It wasn’t his job. 

Another of his advocates says, “If he is guilty, then many more are as well.”

That’s not quite accurate — he’s admitted guilt — but it does raise the question of whether other current and former MGM executives have been asked whether they knew that Nix and other similarly unacceptable players were gambling despite ample know-your-customer safeguards in place.

Wanna legally bet they haven’t?

At least one of Sibella’s friends asks why five other illegal bookmakers were playing at MGM and only barred after the case became public. It’s a question I’ve been wondering about for weeks.

When a Sibella advocate contends, “nothing escapes the attention” of security and compliance at large casino corporations as they market to customers, it makes it even harder to imagine characters with such easily traceable interactions with the justice system managed to evade security somehow slipping under the radar.

Attorney David Chesnoff, who represents more than one of those barred players, declined a request for comment. It’s important to note that, whatever their status, they haven’t been charged with a crime in association with the ongoing case.

In a state that touts itself as the “gold standard” of casino industry regulation, a land where we often hear that a license to practice gaming is a privilege, the public should have the right to know just how thorough this investigation is, and whether the state Gaming Control Board is appropriately following up. 

Meanwhile, presuming the standard presentence procedures are in place, Sibella’s attorney John Spilotro has likely been busy collecting letters of support attesting to his character from his client’s family and friends. The letters generally call for leniency and are taken into consideration by the judge at the time of sentencing. Some will be easier than others to solicit.

The letters should make for interesting and even insightful reading. You might see some very familiar names — perhaps even a top Nevada elected official or two. It wasn’t so long ago that U.S. Sen. Harry Reid wrote a letter on behalf of gambler and developer Billy Walters in connection with an insider trading case.

Those names absent from the list of Sibella supporters will surely send a message as well. They could speak volumes about human nature and lead to discussions about fair-weather friends. Some of us might be reminded of the more Machiavellian aspects of the casino industry’s high offices, where true intentions are often disguised by bright-white smiles and a boys-club executive’s tumble from the top is a long and lonesome fall.

This isn’t a morality tale, and Sibella is no martyr. But the idea that many in the industry haven’t been guilty of his admitted crime is laughable. Barring other revelations, at this point he’s just a donkey with a new tail pinned on him by an intrepid team of IRS and Homeland Security investigators from out of state.

You won’t be blamed for wondering how far the federal investigation is going to go in an environment that started practicing “don’t ask, don’t tell” long before a politician coined the term.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in Time, Readers Digest, The Daily Beast, Reuters, Ruralite and Desert Companion, among others. He also offers weekly commentary on Nevada Public Radio station KNPR.