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Nevada’s Black Book Has New Entry

In general, someone’s little black book is probably a record into which you would like your name to be entered. You certainly don’t want to end up as number thirty-seven in the “black book” of the state of Nevada’s gambling commission. Just ask William Cushing, who officially was listed as number thirty-six last Thursday. The black book was formerly referred to as the List of Excluded Persons, and is a collection of all the people who have been banned from entering any state casinos at any time, ever. As you might expect, it takes a grave offense to get banned from gambling in Nevada. In Cushing’s case, it was the egregious cheating of casino slot machines that earned him his ban.

Cushing was nominated by the Gaming Control Board for this singularly ignoble distinction after being indicted for his second lifetime charge of cheating slot machines through the use of a foreign device. Back in 1985, the U.S. District Court in Reno sentenced Cushing to an average of six years in prison for having tampered with slot games and bilked Las Vegas Strip gambling establishments out of thousands, which he did not report to the IRS. Clearly, Cushing is not one of those people for whom incarceration proved to be a learning experience! A year ago, in September 2007, Cushing was again up to his old tricks – this time, inserting a device into fruit machines’ bill validators that tricked the machine into “thinking” that a one hundred dollar bill had been entered, instead of the one dollar that Cushing actually bet. Cushing would then cash out the credits.

Being listed in the black book makes it a felony for the person in question to even enter a state casino. Being barred from his old stomping grounds is the least of Cushing’s problems – he faces trial (and more jail time) in November, in connection with the new charges.

Back to September 2008 Archive.