3 gaming leaders win recommendation for licensing in Nevada
Three gaming industry professionals were unanimously recommended for licensing following suitability hearings before the state Gaming Control Board on Wednesday.
Rob Goldstein, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp.; Winifred “Wendy” Webb, a board director for Wynn Resorts Ltd.; and Mary Elizabeth Higgins, CEO of Affinity Gaming, were recommended by the three-member board. The Nevada Gaming Commission is expected to give final approval Feb. 20.
Goldstein, who joined Sands in 1995 and has been its president and chief operating officer since 2015, was seeking licensing as a director and manager after a clerical oversight determined he held the position but had never been formally approved by regulators.
The Sands internal compliance team did not make an additional licensing request because Goldstein had previous approvals already with the Control Board, and the committee wasn’t aware it needed to make the additional filing.
“You weren’t the first one to miss the fact that it was required, and I suspect it won’t be the last one,” board member Phil Katsaros told Goldstein.
Goldstein easily won board approval, and his appearance gave members an opportunity to ask about the recent closure of Sands casinos in Macao due to the outbreak of the coronavirus in China.
Webb, the CEO of California-based Kestrel Corporate Advisors, was among three women appointed to Wynn’s board of directors in April 2018 and chairs its audit committee. She has served on the boards of publicly traded companies for 11 years.
While the Wynn board is Webb’s first experience with a gaming company, she spent 20 years with The Walt Disney Co., working on the financing of several theme park developments and the acquisitions of ABC, ESPN and Pixar.
Higgins was appointed Affinity’s CEO — one of the few women holding that title in the industry — in April. Before joining Affinity in 2018, she helped establish Vici Properties, Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s real estate investment trust.
Privately held Affinity operates five casinos in Nevada, three in Colorado, two in Missouri and one in Iowa. The Nevada properties include three in Primm — Primm Valley, Whiskey Pete’s and Buffalo Bill’s — along with the Silver Sevens in Las Vegas and Rail City in Sparks.
Regulators questioned Higgins about the progress of sports wagering in Colorado and Iowa before unanimously recommending licensing approval as an officer.
The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.
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Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
