Deputy Editor
Two Las Vegas-based poker players died in an apparent murder-suicide on March 26, and a local news station identified them last week. According to 8 News Now, 56-year-old Scott Yeates stabbed roommate Keith Budner, 70, to death. He then killed himself by jumping off a parking garage on the Strip.
A poster on TwoPlusTwo wrote that the garage, which police declined to name, belonged to Aria. The person also said both men were regulars in local small-stakes poker games on the Strip.
“Very tragic,” the person wrote. “Scott moved in with Keith, who had a lot of health problems, to help care for him. Obviously took a very wrong turn at some point.”
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Yeates Wrote He Was ‘Sorry’ on Tragic Night
According to the police report, the two men had gotten in an argument at home around 5:30 p.m. on March 26. A neighbor called 911 to report that someone had been stabbed.
When police arrived, they found Budner with multiple stab wounds. They pronounced him dead at the scene.
Yeates had fled the scene and apparently phoned Budner’s family to tell them what happened. He told them he was planning to jump from a Strip parking garage. He did so shortly after the police made contact with him, and police said he didn’t survive.
In addition to contacting Budner’s family, Yeats also made a one-word Facebook post that night: “Sorry.”
Yeates, Budner Had Long Histories in Poker
Yeates had poker tournament cashes dating to 1996. But he was not just a poker player, having worked in the industry for many years. According to his LinkedIn, he worked at PokerStars from 2005-2011 as VIP program manager.
One poster said he built the Supernova Elite program, which set the industry standard for rewards. Another said he was the “face of PokerStars on 2p2 for years.”
Yeates then took a job at Ultimate Poker, a regulated real-money Nevada site, until it closed up shop in 2014. As director of operations for poker, Yeates wrote that he helped set up the site’s games and rewards program.
According to Budner’s Card Player profile, he had about $60,000 in tournament cashes dating to 2006. The original poster on TwoPlusTwo said he was wheelchair-bound and in “very bad shape.”
Image credit: Don Ramey Logan/Wikimedia Commons (license)
