Nevada Gaming Commission to think about elimination Francis Citro from List of Excluded Persons | Casinos & Gaming

The Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday is predicted to determine whether or not it is going to take into account the unprecedented elimination of a residing individual from the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s List of Excluded Persons.

Commissioners will take into account whether or not a listening to is to ensure that Francis Citro, 80, a Las Vegas man who was positioned on the checklist, often known as Nevada’s “Black Book,” on Nov. 21, 1991.

Usually, commissioners received’t take away somebody’s identify from the checklist till after they’ve died.

Citro’s lawyer, Michael Lasher, in November formally requested Citro’s elimination from the checklist.

A preferred entertainer at Las Vegas’ Italian American Club, Citro is hoping his elimination from the checklist would allow him to carry out his assortment of bebop music, Italian people songs, jokes and tales about Las Vegas’ mob previous in a on line casino lounge setting some day.

Citro lately carried out his act for a personal social gathering at a New Year’s Eve celebration in Arizona.

In his 10-page petition to the fee, Lasher explains how Citro is a modified man from the one who famously stood earlier than commissioners in 1991 in a tuxedo and heard the five-member fee vote unanimously to ban him from the state’s casinos.

“Good cause exists to grant petitioner a hearing and to remove him from the List of Excluded Persons,” Lasher’s petition says. “Petitioner was placed on the list because of four felony convictions and his allegedly unsavory character gleaned from media accounts and government crime reports. In the decades that have passed, petitioner’s character and reputation have become stellar. He is a reformed man, doing good for his community by charity fundraising as an entertainer. And the media has taken note.”

Citro is now one among 37 individuals on the checklist of people who find themselves banned from coming into any of the state’s largest casinos.

Under the state’s 3½-page Regulation 28, which outlines the operation of the checklist, individuals excluded “may petition the commission in writing and request that his or her name be removed from such list.”

Lasher’s request says, “Petitioner has done extensive fundraising for various local charities. As just a few examples, he hosted a Christmas Dance Party to benefit the kids at Child Haven, for which he received letters of appreciation. He also assisted in another charity drive, which collected 3,000 socks for homeless people.”

Citro stated he intends to attend Thursday’s fee assembly at which commissioners can both agree to think about a listening to at a later date or reject the request.

Two extra nominated

At their December and January conferences, Nevada Gaming Control Board members nominated two extra folks to the checklist.

In December, the board nominated former minor league baseball participant Wayne Nix, who pleaded responsible in April 2022 in federal courtroom to conspiracy to function an unlawful playing enterprise and to submitting a false tax return. His sentencing has repeatedly been delayed and is now scheduled in March.

In January, it nominated Mathew Bowyer, the unlawful bookmaker who collected thousands and thousands of {dollars} taking sports activities bets from Los Angeles Dodger baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s former translator and de facto supervisor, who was sentenced Aug. 29 to 12 months and a day in jail.

Bowyer pleaded responsible in 2023 to federal prices of working an unlawful playing enterprise, cash laundering and submitting a false tax return. He took sports activities bets from an estimated 700 gamblers, together with the translator Ippei Mizuhara, who was sentenced to 4 years in jail in February for stealing an estimated $17 million from Ohtani, a celebrity designated hitter and pitcher for the Dodgers.

It’s unclear when the fee would take up the nominations of Nix and Bowyer or a listening to for Citro if it chooses to think about the petition.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at [email protected] or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.