Leonard Morgan Hairston Is The Latest Casino Cheater To Notorious Black Book

Ed note: This article has been updated to reflect Hairston’s addition to the list.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) added another person to its Excluded Person list. On Nov. 18, Leonard Morgan Hairston is the latest person added to the list more commonly known as Nevada’s “Black Book.”

The decision on whether or not Hairston will no longer be allowed inside of a Nevada casino was made when the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) had its monthly meeting in November.

Movies and TV shows make that Black Book sound like a huge list of cheaters and unsavory characters that are no longer able to enter a Nevada casino. That’s not quite the case.

Hairston is just the 37th person on Nevada’s Excluded Person list.

The most recent addition to the list was in August for a different reason than most in the Black Book. Nevada casinos banned Kendrick Laronte Weatherspoon for a “history of assaulting women and forcing women into prostitution at Strip resorts,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Hairston’s record of cheating Nevada casinos

Hairston has a long history of attempting to cheat casinos. He’s been arrested 34 times for a variety of crimes.

He has numerous felony convictions. Authorities have charged him with theft as well as manufacturing and using fake casino chips.

In 2004, Hairston used just two counterfeit $25 Palms chips at Fremont Casino. The two chips were actually old chips from Dunes. That casino closed in 1993.

He tried the same trick at another casino in downtown Las Vegas a few days later. This time Hairston attempted to use fake $25 chips from Palms at Fitzgeralds (now The D).

When police caught Hairston at Fitzgeralds, they found him in possession of even more counterfeit casino chips. They busted him with fake $100 chips from:

• Bellagio
• Hard Rock
• Luxor
• Mandalay Bay

During a board meeting last month, Deputy Attorney General John Michela said, Hairston, is a “serial gaming offender incapable of staying out of trouble.”

Black Book was likely for Hairston

Hairston’s addition to the Excluded Person list was expected. Unlike Weatherspoon, his multiple crimes over the years directly affected casino businesses.

Michela also said that the number of crimes committed by Hairston makes him a prime candidate for the Excluded Person list. NGCB member Philip Katsaros added the following:

“Clearly, he’s kind of a menace to our regulatory oversight of the casinos and I would shudder to think how many more agents we might need if there were many others engaging in the levels of criminal activity that this individual has done.”

If the commission adds Hairston to the list, he would be the second person Nevada casinos ban in the past three months. The NGC voted on the matter during its meeting in November.