Nevada Bill Would Create List Of Online Cheaters

Nevada Assembly Bill 380 is meant to provide transparency to the state’s lackluster online gambling world. AB380 requires the creation of a list of online cheaters similar to Nevada’s “Black Book.”

Professional poker player Sara Cholhagian Ralston and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) drafted the bill. AB380 calls for the Nevada Gaming Commission to maintain a public list of players with online gambling accounts that have been suspended or banned for cheating. That information isn’t publicly available at this time.

Because Nevada currently has just one online gambling operator, the total burden of creating the list would fall to Caesars, which operates the World Series of Poker online room.

Providing names for cheater list would fall exclusively on Caesars

Nevada online gambling consists of poker and sports betting. The legislation legalizing online poker did not include online casinos, probably be design. Currently, Caesars’ WSOP room is the only website available in Nevada for real-money, online poker.

The List of Excluded Persons for brick-and-mortar casinos currently contains 37 names. The list, known as the Black Book, began in 1960. Like the Black Book, the goal of AB380 is to protect operators and also the public from known cheaters. The bill requires the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) to oversee the list.

“This bill requires the Commission to adopt regulations to provide for the establishment of a list of persons who have been suspended or banned from an interactive gaming system for cheating.”

The idea is simple enough, but the task of providing names for the list falls on online casino operators. Caesars is currently the only company in Nevada with an online gaming platform. It would be the sole company responsible to do the following:

“Require each licensed operator of an interactive gaming system in this State to transmit to the Nevada Gaming Control Board the interactive gaming account name, full name, and date of birth of any person who has been suspended or banned from the interactive gaming system for cheating.”

Caesars says AB380 would bring lawsuits against the company

During a meeting to discuss AB380, Caesars’ lobbyist Mike Alonso told Assembly Judicial Committee representatives that the company is strongly against the bill.

“[It] will only lead to expensive and burdensome litigation for damaging someone’s reputation, or from players who think that they lost money to an alleged cheater and want compensation.”

Alonso said the bill would turn Caesars into law enforcers.

“We cooperate with them and provide whatever we are required through reports … But we don’t make (the cheating) determination. They’re a law enforcement agency and they go through a process.”

Assemblyman Ken Gray agreed with Alonso. His concern with a list is that it would publicly shame suspected cheaters without evidence.

Under AB380, the burden of determining online cheaters would fall to operators. With the Black Book, gaming regulators define which players are cheaters in retail casinos.

BetMGM still mum on whether it will add online poker room in Nevada

There have been rumors of BetMGM opening an online poker room in Nevada for more than a year. It hasn’t happened.

When Play Innevada reached out to BetMGM on whether it plans to add new online poker room in Nevada, we received a “no comment.”

BetMGM recently received its 13th waiver on starting an online poker room from the NGC.