KVIG Informative

Nevada’s gaming regulators still decide who is allowed to own a casino on the Strip — the same job the state took on as Las Vegas cut its mob-linked financiers out of casino ownership decades ago. The Nevada Gaming Control Board approved another change of casino control in April 2026, when Golden Entertainment moved from public to private ownership under chairman and chief executive Blake Sartini, the latest use of a licensing system that traces back to casinos like Circus Circus shedding Teamsters-financed mob ownership in the 1970s.

Jay Sarno, who had already built Caesars Palace as the Strip’s first fully themed resort in 1966, opened Circus Circus on Oct. 18, 1968, with more than 10,000 people attending the opening, according to The Mob Museum’s history of the property. Unlike Caesars, Circus Circus struggled from the start: the property opened without a hotel, charged admission at the door, and mixed circus acts with the casino floor in a way that irritated gamblers, the museum’s account states.

Sarno’s financial troubles led him to the same lender many Las Vegas casino builders relied on once banks wouldn’t touch gaming properties: the Teamsters. With Jimmy Hoffa in prison, Sarno secured financing through Kansas City crime boss Nick Civella, and the Teamsters approved a $7.6 million loan for a 414-room hotel tower in 1971, according to The Mob Museum. Circus Circus became one of the most notorious mob operations on the Strip, the museum’s history states, with cash skimmed from the counting room routed back to organized-crime figures in Kansas City and Chicago under the watch of Civella associate Carl Thomas, while Chicago Outfit representative Anthony Spilotro ran the property’s jewelry shop under the name Anthony Stuart.

Sarno’s Circus Circus problems compounded in 1974: he faced a bribery indictment that year, and he and his partners leased the casino to Bill Bennett and Bill Pennington rather than continue operating it themselves, according to the UNLV Special Collections finding aid for the Jay Sarno Papers. Sarno was acquitted of the bribery charge in 1975, the finding aid states, but he never regained control of Circus Circus.

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Bennett and Pennington’s lease reshaped the property immediately: they separated the gambling floor from the circus performances, removed a resident elephant, reformed carnival games that had been rigged against customers, and pushed Spilotro out of the jewelry shop, according to The Mob Museum’s account. The pair bought Circus Circus outright from Sarno in 1983 for $72 million, the museum reports, then expanded the brand to Reno, to Laughlin’s Edgewater, and eventually to the Strip megaresorts Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay under the publicly traded Circus Circus Enterprises. MGM Mirage acquired the properties six years after that expansion, according to the museum’s account.

The regulatory review that Bennett and Pennington had to satisfy to take over Circus Circus in 1974 — background checks, financial disclosure and licensing hearings before state gaming officials — is the same basic structure Nevada still runs every new casino owner through today, regardless of whether the buyer is an individual or a publicly traded company.

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The Nevada Gaming Control Board applied that same review in 2026 to a very different kind of ownership change. The board approved Golden Entertainment’s shift from a publicly traded company to private ownership under Sartini on April 9, 2026, with VICI Properties purchasing the real estate under seven Nevada casino properties — including the Strat on the Strip — in a sale-leaseback arrangement that made VICI the landlord while Sartini’s company kept running the casinos, valuing shares at $30 each. The Nevada Gaming Commission held final review of the deal on April 23, 2026.

Where Sarno needed the Teamsters and Bennett needed a five-year lease to pry Circus Circus loose from its mob financing, Sartini needed only a state licensing hearing to take a Nevada gaming company private again. The vetting system built to force the mob out of casino ownership is still the only door anyone has to walk through to own one.