Former Resorts World Las Vegas compliance director sues after reporting foreign-patron activity

Preston Banks, a former compliance director at Resorts World Las Vegas, has filed a federal complaint claiming he was fired for flagging suspicious activity tied to a group of foreign patrons. For high-risk operators and their PSPs, the key point is not the employment dispute itself but the mechanics in the complaint: source-of-funds checks, third-party marker payments, SAR filings, and the moment a casino decides it has seen enough to move from monitoring to banning and collections.

1. Banks filed suit in US District Court on 14 September 2026, alleging whistleblower retaliation under the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 and wrongful termination under Nevada law. He is seeking reinstatement or front pay, double back pay with interest, compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees and punitive damages.
2. He joined Resorts World Las Vegas in September 2022 after almost 16 years as a regulatory specialist at the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. According to the complaint, he was dismissed on September 29 2025 and told the termination was tied to an alleged illegal gambling scheme that he says he had identified.
3. The lawsuit says Banks first identified, in late 2022, a group of patrons predominantly from Argentina whose “sources of funds could not be verified because the businesses listed on their casino credit applications did not exist or could not be located.” In 2023, he recommended that supervisors and the anti-money laundering committee prohibit third-party marker payments by three people, and that restriction was adopted.
4. By 2024, the group had grown to between 60 and 150 people from Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Italy and Spain, court documents say. Resorts World records reportedly described the activity as including unverified source of funds, credit fraud, repeated third-party marker payments, coordinated or “coached” wagering, chip passing, chip walking, bankrolling, minimal gaming, offsetting bets and bill-stuffing.
5. By September 11 2024, more than 50 suspicious activity reports required under the Bank Secrecy Act had been filed concerning those patrons, according to the complaint. Banks says supervisors and the AML committee “repeatedly minimised concerns, delayed review, and took incomplete or inadequate action.”

The complaint says that on September 2 2025, Banks sent a report on the alleged activity to chief compliance officer Jennifer Roberts and other compliance staff. Nine days later, Resorts World banned 28 customers “associated with the credit-fraud component of the group” and referred their accounts to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office for collection of about $12m to $13m in unpaid casino credit. Banks says he was then dismissed the same month, and that human resources director Bob Napierala told him the decision came from “the C-suite” and was related to the illegal gambling scheme.