Old Nevada Rule Dating To Bugsy Siegel Gets Whacked

An operation more or less created by Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel — and one of the last vestiges of the way “things used to be done” in the world of Nevada gambling — is coming to a close with the new year.

Senate Bill 203 goes into effect Thursday, and it marks the end of a long-standing fixture in Nevada horse racing: the licensed race “disseminator.” According to a report in CDC Gaming, Siegel — the noted mobster/Las Vegas impresario — was the first to offer this service.

For decades, state law required racebooks to get official race information, such as live video, results, and payout data, through a specially licensed middleman known as a disseminator. SB 203 wipes that system off the books. The law repeals an entire section of statutes that spelled out how disseminators were licensed, how they operated, and how racing information had to be shared.

Under the new law, racetracks can deal directly with Nevada racebooks to provide live race feeds and results, as long as they follow regulations set by the Nevada Gaming Commission. There is no longer a requirement that this information flow through a single, state-licensed distributor.

“It will modernize our approach [to horse racing] by eliminating disseminators, while making sure all the regulatory issues involved are consistent in their approach,” Gaming Control Board Chair Mike Dreitzer said, according to CDC Gaming.

Modernizing rules

The change reflects how horse racing actually works today. Race video and data are already produced and controlled by the tracks and their technology partners, not by an independent Nevada operator using decades-old rules written for a very different era.

By eliminating the disseminator license, SB 203 simplifies race wagering regulation and removes a layer of oversight that no longer matched modern technology. Nevada didn’t change how horse bets are regulated, but it changed how racing information gets from the track to the betting window.

“The simulcast industry wouldn’t exist today without the service rendered by disseminators in the past and their vision of the future,” Rusty LeBlanc, chief of the audit division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, told CDC Gaming. “Nevada’s dissemination rules made sense in the era of teletype machines and early simulcasting. However, they no longer fit today’s technology and racing operations.”

Beyond dismantling the disseminator system, SB 203 tightens Nevada’s control over the companies that power betting behind the scenes. The law gives the Nevada Gaming Commission and Nevada Gaming Control Board clearer authority to license or register wagering technology, vet key people for suitability, inspect operations, and regulate systems even when they’re based outside the state.