Securities Commissioner Travis J. Iles issued an emergency cease and desist order to stop “Sand Vegas Casino Club”, a project that writes on its website “THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS. And with SandVegasCasinoClub NFTs YOU can BE THE HOUSE!” The project would have allowed NFT buyers to participate in a “profit-share program” and earn “passive income” from a metaverse casino where people could not only gamble, but purchase metaverse items representing drinks and cigarettes (really).In the order, the Commissioner alleged that the project was “leveraging interest in metaverses to perpetrate a high-tech fraudulent securities offering”, and had been falsely claiming to their followers that securities laws don’t apply to NFTs. “They are misleading purchasers by claiming they can simply avoid securities regulation by implementing illusory features or use different terminology,” the Commissioner’s announcement said.