The History of Casino Regulation: Taming a Wild Industry

How government oversight transformed casinos from a mob-linked business into a heavily regulated corporate industry.

Nevada’s Early, Loose Oversight

When Nevada legalized gambling in 1931, oversight was minimal, handled largely at the county level with few statewide standards, leaving significant room for organized crime figures to quietly finance and operate casinos throughout the 1940s and 1950s. This lack of centralized regulation became an increasing embarrassment as federal investigators uncovered mob involvement across the state’s biggest properties.

The Creation of the Nevada Gaming Control Board

In response to mounting scrutiny, Nevada established the Nevada Gaming Control Board in 1955, followed by the Nevada Gaming Commission in 1959, creating a formal state-level regulatory structure responsible for licensing operators, auditing casino finances, and enforcing rules of fair play. This two-tiered system became a model later adopted, in modified forms, by other states legalizing gambling.

The Black Book

One of the regulatory board’s most famous tools is the “List of Excluded Persons,” widely known as the Black Book, first published in 1960 to formally bar individuals with known organized crime ties from entering any licensed Nevada casino. Being listed in the Black Book carries serious legal consequences and remains one of the strongest enforcement mechanisms available to Nevada regulators today.

New Jersey’s Stricter Framework

When Atlantic City legalized casinos in 1976, New Jersey lawmakers, wary of Nevada’s mob-linked history, created an even stricter regulatory body, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, along with a Division of Gaming Enforcement responsible for background checks and financial audits. This more rigorous framework was specifically designed to prevent organized crime infiltration from the outset.

A Patchwork of Modern Regulators

Today, casino regulation in the United States remains largely state-based, with each jurisdiction operating its own licensing body, while countries like the United Kingdom oversee gambling through a single national regulator, the UK Gambling Commission. This patchwork of regulatory approaches reflects gambling’s complicated legal history, balancing economic benefits against the industry’s long, and sometimes troubled, past.