Dennis Gomes

As head of the audit division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the 1970s, Dennis Gomes pursued Mafia connections to Las Vegas’s gambling industry. The 1995 Martin Scorsese film “Casino,” based on a book by Nicholas Pileggi, drew on Mr. Gomes’s investigation into how Las Vegas mobsters had embezzled more than $20 million from the Stardust Casino. Mr. Gomes said he started working at casinos “because I knew the business from the inside out.” Two years ago, after operating more than a dozen casinos and resorts across the country — among them the Indiana Live in Indianapolis, the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas and the Tropicana and the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City — Mr. Gomes joined Morris Bailey, a New York real estate investor, to buy the Resorts Casino Hotel. They paid $31.5 million. In addition to his son, Aaron, he is survived by his wife, Barbara; three daughters, Mary, Danielle and Gabrielle; and three grandchildren.