A criminal case against one gang member who participated in an attempted robbery that turned into murder gained traction earlier this week. The incident dates back to October 2019 when Ryan Gatzke, 27, was fatally shot and killed in his home by three members of a gang known as the “Terror Squad.”

On Monday this week, a filing with the case in North Battleford Provincial Court in Saskatchewan, Canada, from April 2021 was released to the public, revealing that the gang members were allegedly tipped by a casino worker that Gatzke had money in his home, as announced by Sask Today.

Additionally, on Monday this week, the youngest gang member, who was 17 at the time of the crime, agreed to be sentenced as an adult. Another three Terror Squad members were apprehended and sentenced for Gatzke’s murder already. The list includes Charles McLean, the gang’s getaway driver who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced in March 2022 to four years in prison.

On the other hand, Isaac Melco, another gang member pleaded guilty to manslaughter as well and received 12 years in prison back in February 2023. Similarly, Jacob Ballantyne, the third gang member who was involved in the bloody crime also pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to eight years in prison back in June.

According to the April 2021 filing, which was recently made public, the gang members were told that Gatzke had money and drugs by a person who worked at a casino the victim visited earlier on the night of the incident. Prior to attempting to rob the victim, the Terror Squad members were given approval from senior members of the gang.

A Robbery Turns into Bloody Murder

The aforementioned incident dates back to October 18, 2019. At the time, Gatzke, together with his wife, visited a casino in North Battleford. Senior Crown Prosecutor Jennifer Schmidt revealed Monday that the couple won some money at the casino. “Not a large sum but some money,” she explained, outlining the two had a “fairly good night.” The victim and his wife had dinner as well as drinks before heading home.

Later on the same night, Gatzke’s home was invaded by Melco, Ballantyne and the third gang member whose name was not disclosed since he was 17 years old at the time. Gatzke and his wife were in bed when they were surprised by the three gang members who consumed a lot of alcohol, drugs and were wearing face masks.

The youngest culprit held a shotgun, Ballantyne was equipped with a 9mm handgun while Melco carried an SKS rifle. After an altercation with the victim, a total of three shots were fired. Gatzke was shot twice, while one bullet hit the bedroom ceiling. One of the shots severed the victim’s artery which was a lethal injury.

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Undoubtedly, winning a jackpot at a casino is an unforgettable and exciting experience. One such lucky visitor played at Mohegan Sun, one of the largest gaming and entertainment destinations in the United States, and went home with a staggering jackpot of more than $500,000.

Details regarding the lucky visitor emerged earlier this week with Mohegan Sun confirming that his name is Jose S. The person, who is a Stafford, Connecticut resident, visited the casino and entertainment destination and hit the jackpot from Super 4 Progressive Blackjack.

As a result, the Stafford resident pocketed some $525,094. According to Mohegan, Jose felt lucky when visiting the venue. The person was right to feel lucky, considering the staggering Super 4 Progressive Blackjack jackpot. Jose did not confirm what he intends to do with the jackpot but without any doubt, he has plenty of options considering the hefty sum.

Mohegan Sun Offers a Range of Gaming Options

Visitors of Mohegan Sun can find the Super 4 Progressive Blackjack in Casino of the Earth, the venue’s state-of-the-art room located in the Hall of Lost Tribes. Visitors to the room can enjoy a wide range of table games, including Texas Hold ‘Em, Omaha and Seven-Card Stud, as well as a Race Book and more than 260 slot machines.

Casino of the Earth is a smoke-free room and offers more than 180,000 square feet of gaming and entertainment space. Currently, Super 4 Progressive Blackjack is available only in a handful of casinos across the country and Mohegan Sun is one of them.

Mohegan Sun offers some 1,600 luxury hotel rooms, more than 70 shopping outlets and entertainment venues in addition to its gaming amenities. The massive gaming and entertainment resort is located along the Thames River in Southeastern Connecticut.

Its strategic location makes Mohegan Sun perfect for visitors from nearby states. The entertainment and casino resort is also close to a wide range of antique shops and museums, among other interesting places its guests can visit.

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Calvin Anderson, the Las Vegas-based professional poker player, emerged as the winner of the 2023 World Poker Tour (WPT) Prime Championship. The prestigious event took place at Wynn Las Vegas and saw a staggering 10,512 entries that helped generate a prize pool of $10,196,640.

This year’s Prime Championship enjoyed much more interest when compared to its debut in 2022. For comparison, the 2022 WPT Prime Championship attracted a field of 5,430 entries. In other words, this year, the number of participants nearly doubled, helping generate a staggering prize pool that surpassed $10 million.

Emerging as the winner, Anderson collected the first-place prize of $1,386,280. Moreover, the poker pro earned secured the WPT Prime Championship trophy. The recent win represented Anderson’s first WPT win and also granted him a seat in the 2024 WPT World Championship.

During the 2023 WPT Prime Championship, the poker pro met other notable poker veterans, including Frankie Cucchiara who finished in 52nd place, Daniel Lowery, a 14-time gold ring winner, who ranked 18th as well as Steven Jones, the 2023 WSOP Main Event runner-up who ranked 10th place during the recent tournament.

There was a total of six players that endured to reach the Prime Championship’s final table. With Anderson emerging as the winner, Aaron Pinson finished second, collecting a $910,000 prize. The third place belonged to Jay Lu, who took home $675,000, while Jon Glendinning ranked fourth, taking home $505,000. At the 2023 WPT Prime Championship, Bob Buckenmayer ranked fifth, taking home $380,000, while Valeriy Pak finished sixth, collecting a $290,000 prize. Just outside of the top six was Mukul Pahuja, who finished in seventh place.

The Recent Win Grows the Poker Pro’s Total Live Earnings

The WPT Prime Championship rounded off the 2023 WPT Prime season and comes ahead of the 2024 WPT Prime season. The new WPT Prime season starts on January 26, 2024, and is expected to attract more seasoned poker professionals.

Adam Pliska, WPT’s CEO, shared his excitement about Anderson’s recent win. “The astounding increase in the WPT Prime Championship exceeded expectations, and further fortifies the event as a pillar of the WPT World Championship festival at Wynn Las Vegas,” he explained in a statement released by WPT on Wednesday. Finally, Pliska congratulated Anderson for his “monumental win.”

The 2023 WPT Prime Championship win further grows the total live earnings for the Las Vegas-based poker pro. According to the Hendon Mob, Anderson’s total live earnings are close to $5 million or $4,961,841 to be exact. His latest win represents the best live cash prize collected by the poker pro throughout his professional career.

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A lucky man from Albuquerque, New Mexico, won the grand prize from the popular game Lotto America recently. The man, who became the first New Mexico Lottery player to secure a jackpot from the game, won the grand prize from the draw on November 4, 2023. Identified as Neil Cochran, the lucky winner visited the New Mexico Lottery headquarters earlier this week to collect the grand prize of $3.52 million, won from Lotto America.

To win the grand prize, Cochran guessed correctly all five white balls with numbers 8, 11, 23, 47, 48 and Star Ball number 4. He purchased the winning ticket at Speedway #9093 at 6570 Paradise Blvd NW in Albuquerque. Since there was no other winning jackpot ticket from the draw on November 4, the lucky man collected the whole grand prize himself.

After discovering that he was the winner of the jackpot prize, Cochran told his mother. The woman initially thought that he and his girlfriend were pulling a prank on her, saying that she didn’t believe them. Undoubtedly, she changed her mind when she saw her son holding the oversized check with the $3.52 million jackpot sum written on it.

The Winner Picked the Numbers Himself

Visiting Speedway ahead of the draw on November 4, Cochran was offered by a store employee to participate in the lottery. The employee remembered the lucky winner who told them that Lotto America has better odds than Mega Millions and Powerball. Cochran was further attracted to the game by the fact that the ticket cost was only $1.

Once he decided to play, the lucky man did not use randomly generated numbers by Quick Pick. Instead, Cochran had numbers in mind that he picked himself. Besides Lotto America, the man purchased tickets for Mega Millions and Powerball games too. True to his gut feeling that he would be the winner, Cochran used the same numbers for all three games.

Earlier this week, the Powerball jackpot survived the draw on Wednesday. The latest draw of the game didn’t have a grand prize winner, nor a winner that collected a second-tier prize of $1 million for guessing correctly all white balls. With hours left until the drawing on Saturday, the Powerball jackpot is expected to hit $220 million or $101.2 million in cash value.

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With the recent Powerball jackpot worth over a billion dollars falling to a lucky player in California, many fair-weather gamblers still want some skin in the game. The good news for them is that Mega Millions is not far behind in terms of jackpot prize value.

Next Estimated Jackpot
$820 Million
CASH OPTION: $422.0 MILLION
Next Drawing:
Tuesday, 7/25 @ 11 p.m. ET

What’s Up With the Billion Dollar Jackpots?

If it seems like jackpots are higher these days, it is because they are – the biggest prizes also fall less often because the jackpots are harder to win than they used to be, thanks to a rule change a couple of years ago. The longer it takes to win (the more tickets sold) the higher the jackpot grows. There’s also the knock-on effect of bigger jackpots inspiring additional ticket sales in what would seem like a win/win for everybody.

The odds of winning one of the huge prizes have always been astronomical. The odds of claiming the big prize are now just about 1 in 302.5 million, but the fact remains, you can’t win if you don’t play. It’s also good to keep that number in perspective. The entire population of the US, including every man, woman, and child is estimated to be just over 331M – that means that if everyone got a different ticket, the jackpot would be won but it would be shared by two people.

Cut the cash take-home roughly in half for each player, and the chances of becoming an “almost billionaire” are even worse. But that’s no reason not to play.

“Play” is the operative word. Since there is no way to increase your odds, and no single person could ever actually become a billionaire under most circumstances, the only rational way to approach the game is to consider it as fairly cheap entertainment. For a couple of bucks, you can imagine the very real possibility (not the probability) of having enough money to essentially do whatever you would like to, for the rest of your life.

Increased chances come with the same odds, but lower payouts

You can never change the odds. However, by buying more tickets, or by buying more than one ticket with a group of players, you increase your chances to win – but – the amount you could win is cut in half by everybody else who has the same winning numbers.

If you choose your own numbers, there’s a good chance someone else chooses the same ones. Plenty of people’s children have the same birthday, a lot of people are the same age… the point is that statistically, you are better off choosing completely random numbers (such as Quickpick) than choosing your own – the odds remain the same but the chance of having to split the prize goes down the more randomly chosen your numbers are.

Mega Millions, Like Powerball, is a Multi-State Lottery, and the Rules Matter

While Mega Millions tickets are sold by lottery retailers in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, they are also sold by bonafide agents, and in many states, that agent can be part of a messenger service. In those cases, you pay a little extra for the ticket but somebody else picks it up for you.

While not legal in every state, we saw an Iraqi man use thelotter.com to buy a ticket a few years ago in Oregon and he was paid directly by the lottery there in the way he chose, and anonymously because of his special circumstances of living in a war zone. Whereas the state usually requires jackpot winners to reveal their identity, that requirement was waived in this situation for obvious reasons.

Even though lotteries operated in concert with the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) have commonalities, most notably a shared jackpot pool, players still need to collect winnings in the state the ticket was sold. You could mail in a winning ticket or claim it in person, but we doubt the US Postal Service would insure a nearly one-billion dollar ticket, or if anyone would want to plop a $0.60 stamp on an envelope with it, drop it in a box, and go about their day. Almost everybody, including the man in Iraq with his messenger service’s help, must claim big winnings in person.

Jackpot winners will only have so many days to claim their prizes – this will vary by jurisdiction but is always at least 90 days from the date of sale. Of course, legal counsel should be sought right away after securing a winning ticket but it should be recorded with the proper lottery authorities and claimed as soon as possible. To drive the expiration date home, the winner of a $1.5B jackpot in California (with 6-month expiry) recently waited until scant hours before the opportunity expired to claim their ticket.

You’ll have to claim the winnings on your tax return and most likely pay taxes on the winnings. Sadly, overall the lottery is already a poor man’s tax – the rich don’t need more money so they play the game less than people who may need it the most, and the odds are simply the worst. That said, the top tax bracket in the US is currency 37% and no matter where you live or how much income you have otherwise, the IRS will take 25% of your winnings before you ever see them.

With all of that…

Two things remain true – you can’t win if you don’t play and you should never expect to win or chase a jackpot, no matter how you choose to gamble.

Source: The Wildest Rules You Didn’t Know Powerball and Mega Millions Winners Must Follow After Hitting the Jackpot, People, July 21, 2023

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Identity theft or fraud is a criminal activity that involves a person using information about another individual to fraudulently obtain services or goods. In Nevada, identity theft is a crime that can be punished with a fine of up to $100,000, as well as imprisonment of up to 20 years. While such crimes aren’t uncommon, it is really difficult for offenders to hide their tracks which usually results in their capture.

Now, a new report suggests that a person was almost able to pull off a scam that allegedly allowed him to obtain more than $1 million by pretending to be the owner of a hotel-casino in Las Vegas. As reported by KLAS, a 23-year-old man named Erik Gutierrez was accused of theft of more than $100,000 after allegedly impersonating a Las Vegas hotel owner to receive money.

The alleged fraud dates back to earlier this month, when an “unknown person” entered the Circa Hotel and Casino, located in downtown Las Vegas, approaching a cage teller and asking for money, reveals the latest report citing court documents. Reportedly, the man claimed to be the owner of the hotel and asked the teller to give him money for fake payments to the fire department.

Law Enforcement Arrests the Suspect, Uncovers $850K

Police were reportedly alerted about the alleged scam on June 17, 2023. Authorities suspected Gutierrez by tracking the vehicle used for the alleged theft. After obtaining a search warrant, on June 18, Police arrested Gutierrez. Upon searching the man’s home, the authorities uncovered a large bag with “US currency bundled together with the name Circa written on the bundle.”

Overall, approximately $850,000 was recovered. Still, more than $300,000 is missing, given that the total which was allegedly obtained in three separate payments was $1,170,000. Currently, law enforcement is trying to determine where is the remaining $314,000.

In a statement released via Twitter, Circa’s CEO, Derek Stevens, said: “Although I love a good PR story, this isn’t one of them.” He explained that Circa is currently collaborating with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department regarding the investigation. Stevens praised the law enforcement’s efforts and refrained from further comments saying that an investigation is currently ongoing.

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