The Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday is expected to decide whether it will consider the unprecedented removal of a living person from the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s List of Excluded Persons.

Commissioners will consider whether a hearing is in order for Francis Citro, 80, a Las Vegas man who was placed on the list, also known as Nevada’s “Black Book,” on Nov. 21, 1991.

Usually, commissioners won’t remove someone’s name from the list until after they’ve died.

Citro’s attorney, Michael Lasher, in November formally requested Citro’s removal from the list.

A popular entertainer at Las Vegas’ Italian American Club, Citro is hoping his removal from the list would enable him to perform his collection of bebop music, Italian folk songs, jokes and stories about Las Vegas’ mob past in a casino lounge setting some day.

Citro recently performed his act for a private party at a New Year’s Eve celebration in Arizona.

In his 10-page petition to the commission, Lasher explains how Citro is a changed man from the one who famously stood before commissioners in 1991 in a tuxedo and heard the five-member commission vote unanimously to ban him from the state’s casinos.

“Good cause exists to grant petitioner a hearing and to remove him from the List of Excluded Persons,” Lasher’s petition says. “Petitioner was placed on the list because of four felony convictions and his allegedly unsavory character gleaned from media accounts and government crime reports. In the decades that have passed, petitioner’s character and reputation have become stellar. He is a reformed man, doing good for his community by charity fundraising as an entertainer. And the media has taken note.”

Citro is now one of 37 persons on the list of people who are banned from entering any of the state’s largest casinos.

Under the state’s 3½-page Regulation 28, which outlines the operation of the list, persons excluded “may petition the commission in writing and request that his or her name be removed from such list.”

Lasher’s request says, “Petitioner has done extensive fundraising for various local charities. As just a few examples, he hosted a Christmas Dance Party to benefit the kids at Child Haven, for which he received letters of appreciation. He also assisted in another charity drive, which collected 3,000 socks for homeless people.”

Citro said he intends to attend Thursday’s commission meeting at which commissioners can either agree to consider a hearing at a later date or reject the request.

Two more nominated

At their December and January meetings, Nevada Gaming Control Board members nominated two more people to the list.

In December, the board nominated former minor league baseball player Wayne Nix, who pleaded guilty in April 2022 in federal court to conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and to filing a false tax return. His sentencing has repeatedly been delayed and is now scheduled in March.

In January, it nominated Mathew Bowyer, the illegal bookmaker who collected millions of dollars taking sports bets from Los Angeles Dodger baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s former translator and de facto manager, who was sentenced Aug. 29 to 12 months and a day in prison.

Bowyer pleaded guilty in 2023 to federal charges of running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He took sports bets from an estimated 700 gamblers, including the translator Ippei Mizuhara, who was sentenced to four years in prison in February for stealing an estimated $17 million from Ohtani, a superstar designated hitter and pitcher for the Dodgers.

It’s unclear when the commission would take up the nominations of Nix and Bowyer or a hearing for Citro if it chooses to consider the petition.

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