Nevada gaming regulators may be ready to adjust sports-betting rules to protect consumers and sportsbooks from schemes involving player underperformance like those unearthed by the Justice Department last month involving organized crime and current and former NBA players.

In two sportsbook-related licensing requests Wednesday, Nevada Gaming Control Board members sought advice from license applicants about how to prevent cheating resulting from athletic underperformance and how it affects proposition bets.

In October, 31 people were indicted on fraud charges in connection with “insider trading” on sports bets. The Justice Department alleges that people placed bets knowing that a player was injured or planning to sit out a game, aware that their statistics would be below normal.

Players who knew when a teammate was hurt or going to sit out a game or individuals who deliberately underperformed to influence the outcome of a game relayed that information to bettors to win thousands of dollars.

Ban is not the answer

Joe Asher, president and CEO of Boomer’s Sportsbook, whose licensing request to establish a race and sportsbook at Ojos Locos Sports Cantina y Casino in North Las Vegas was recommended for approval Wednesday, said an outright ban on proposition sports bets is not the answer to the problem.

“When you read in the press about outlawing prop betting, I think that that’s a negative, because that just pushes people into the black market or the unregulated market,” Asher said.

“But I do think there’s room for regulation around this, because what is important is that in a given jurisdiction, all of the operators are playing by the same rules and that the same standards apply to everybody and that the bet offerings can have some consistency. So there isn’t a fear that, ‘Well, if we don’t offer this but our competitor is, then maybe we’re going to lose business to that competitor.’”

Board members also sought suggestions from Dan Shapiro, chief development officer of Caesars Digital, who oversees William Hill, whose sportsbook would take over the Betfred sportsbook operation at Virgin River Casino in Mesquite.

Shapiro said William Hill employees are instructed to notify the Control Board when they discover suspicious betting patterns. He said the company’s books refunded money to customers on suspicious wagers on the UFC featherweight fight between Isaac Dulgarian and Yadier del Valle in Las Vegas over the weekend.

The Control Board unanimously recommended William Hill’s licensing at Virgin River despite Board Member George Assad’s concern about the company having a dominant market hold in the state with around 100 books statewide.

The board also unanimously recommended conditional approval of Boomer’s licensing at Ojos Locos. The applicant would have to appear in two years on the license because an investigation discovered unsatisfactory accounting records by Ojos Locos management. There’s no restriction on Boomer’s running the book, which will be the fifth Boomer’s location in the state.

Both licenses will be considered for final approval by the Nevada Gaming Commission on Nov. 20. Both operators hope to begin operations at their respective locations on Nov. 21, in time for wagering on the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Red Rock licensing

The Control Board, meeting in Carson City, also recommended the key employee licensure of Bobbie Sue Rihel, vice president of the small properties division of Red Rock Resorts’ Station Casinos.

If approved by the Gaming Commission, Rihel would oversee several Wildfire properties throughout the Las Vegas Valley. The board also recommended licensing as a member, manager, officer and key executive for Secretary and Senior Vice President Jeffrey Welch and Treasurer and Senior Vice President Stephen Cootey for The Den LV, which is being acquired by Station and transformed to one of its Seventy Six-branded taverns.

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