Woman steals $39,000 to play video poker. Diata Demanje Rhodes, a former Multnomah County employee, stole nearly $39,000 from the county she worked for to fund a video poker addiction. She was forced to resign from her position after officials found money missing from an account she worked with. Upon being discovered, she pleaded guilty to theft.
The 37-year-old argued that she should not be thrown in jail because she was going through some hard times during her gambling stint: not only did she just break up with her boyfriend, she also had an abortion and her dog died.
Her plea was successful and Rhodes wasn’t sent to prison. Instead she was sentenced to five years on probation and 160 hours of community service. The judge also ordered her to receive some gambling treatment (surprise surprise).
Brand new casino for North Dakota. Plans for a $20 million casino have been in the works for nearly a decade, and it looks like construction can begin later this summer. The Three Affiliated Tribes will build the facility on tribal land in the area of Lake Sakakawea’s Beaver Bay, which is northwest of Beulah.
The new complex will be named the Eagles Catch Casino, and the plans include building a gambling facility, a hotel, and a convenience store.
New slots for Tampa Bay. There are only 56 legal Las Vegas-style slots in Florida outside of South Florida, and they were put installed in the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino today. “It’s awesome,” said one local gambler. “Now, I feel the Hard Rock is closer to being a real casino.”
Players visiting the casino will have to wait in long lines until over 650 more machines are debuted on May 1st, which spurred a decision to wait a few more days to advertise the new slots. This meant that most people were very surprised to see the machines today.
By the end of May, there should be 1,657 slot machines installed among the 3,000 bingo machines already in action at the casino.