Floyd Lamb (Image: KSNV)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n4. Operation Yobo<\/b><\/h2>\n In 1983, five popular political leaders, including state senators Floyd Lamb and Eugene Echols, Clark County Commissioners Woodrow Wilson and Jack Petitti, and Reno City Councilman Joe McClelland, were convicted of accepting bribes in a sting bearing the nickname of Las Vegas FBI chief Joseph Yablonsky.<\/p>\n
Lamb, the sting\u2019s initial target, was busted after demanding a 1% \u201cfinder\u2019s fee\u201d on a $15 million loan he offered to FBI agent Steve Rybar through the Public Employees Retirement System. He spent nine months in prison.<\/p>\n
Lamb was from a respected and popular local family. His brother, Ralph, served for years as sheriff of Clark County and another brother, Darwin, served as a Clark County Commissioner.<\/strong><\/p>\nFloyd Lamb Park in Las Vegas, named before his indictment, was never renamed.<\/p>\n
Three of the five convicted served full sentences. Lamb served nine months of a three-year sentence, released in part because of poor health. McClelland\u2019s guilty verdict was overturned because of faulty jury instructions after he had already served his one year.<\/p>\n
This scandal reinforced the stereotype that state and local officials in Las Vegas cannot be trusted.<\/p>\nJudge Harry Claiborne, right, appears at his impeachment trial with his attorney, future mayor of Las Vegas (and Claiborne\u2019s former law partner) Oscar Goodman. (Image: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n3. Sitting Federal Judge Convicted<\/b><\/h2>\n Only one federal judge in history has been convicted of a crime while actually sitting on the bench. And, of course, it happened in Vegas. Harry Claiborne, once a law partner of former Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman, was impeached by the US House of Representatives, then convicted by the US Senate for tax evasion in 1986.<\/p>\n
Originally, Claiborne was charged with accepting bribes exceeding $30K and failing to pay taxes on more than $100K. But a mistrial was declared and only the tax-evasion charges were levied the second time.<\/p>\n
Claiborne, who was represented by Goodman at his trial, was imprisoned from May 1986 to October 1987. He was allowed to begin practicing law again in Nevada in 1987. He fatally shot himself in 2004, while suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other health problems.<\/p>\n
2. MIT Blackjack Cheating Scandal<\/b><\/h2>\n A team of brilliant college students, mostly from MIT and Harvard, used their statistical prowess to slowly but regularly beat Las Vegas casinos at blackjack. The operation, headed by 1980 Harvard MBA graduate Bill Kaplan, who allegedly made $10M and trained dozens of the team\u2019s members, inspired the 2008 movie \u201c21\u201d and dealt Las Vegas a permanent black eye. \n<\/b><\/p>\nKevin Spacey, whose own career would later be ended by scandal, and his fellow actors star in the 2008 film, \u201c21,\u201d based on the MIT blackjack scandal. (Columbia Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe most interesting part of this scandal is that the perpetrators managed to evade detection for 20 years and may have continued doing so were it not for one disgruntled former team member who blew the whistle in the \u201990s.<\/p>\n
\n
Actually, they didn\u2019t go entirely<\/em> undetected. As expected, some members got caught and banned from those casinos for life. That didn’t do much to slow down the operation, however, as those players were just replaced by another team member.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nEventually, the team\u2019s members were all banned from playing in the casinos they had profited from, but they had already won millions without serving a day in prison. Counting cards isn’t against the law in any state despite what casinos think of the practice.<\/p>\n
1. Steve Wynn Sex Scandal<\/b><\/h2>\n Steve Wynn is the founder of modern Las Vegas, plain and simple. Beginning in with the Mirage and then the Bellagio, he single-handedly took the Strip, kicking and screaming, from the cheap buffets and has-been headliners of its history to the upscale luxury destination it remains today.<\/p>\n
It is no less possible to deny this fact than to deny the disturbing but vetted allegations of sexual misconduct levied against him by dozens of women in a shocking investigation published by the Wall Street Journal<\/em> on Jan. 26, 2018.<\/p>\nSteve Wynn in front of his Mirage in 1989. Much like the music world still grapples with the legacy of Michael Jackson, who also was never convicted of a crime, Las Vegas still grapples with reconciling the two Steve Wynns. (Image: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe accusations include sexual harassment, coercion, indecent exposure, and an alleged sexual assault case that Wynn paid $7.5 million to settle. In February 2019, Nevada regulators fined Wynn Resorts $20 million for failing to respond to sexual misconduct allegations. In April 2019, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission added $35 million more for covering up the allegations.<\/p>\n
\n
Wynn resigned as chair and CEO of Wynn Resorts in 2018. As part of his separation agreement with the company he founded in 2002, which still bears his name, he was evicted from a villa at Wynn Las Vegas, where he lived with his second wife, Andrea Hissom, for about a decade. They now reside in Florida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Wynn continues to deny all of the allegations and was never convicted of a crime in association with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every city has its share of scandals. Las Vegas has two or three cities\u2019 shares. From local politicians to gaming luminaries to murderers, people operate under the impression that what happens in Vegas not only stays there, but gets a pass from law enforcement. In the days of mob rule, they were 100% correct. No […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":270735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,81886,61,1,84511],"tags":[82721,86036,86037,86032,86039,86029,86030,86038,23,86040,86035,86034,86031,82002,82235,84186,86041,82714,81940,86033,85678,86042],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Top 10 Las Vegas Scandals - Casino.org<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n