Charges filed on Friday, accuse a Jefferson County couple of using a technical glitch they discovered at River City Casino in St. Louis, Missouri to steal upwards of $300,000.
According to the court documents, 61-year-old Daniel T. Sheldon and 60-year-old Eileen R. Sheldon, who were charged with felony stealing,? a glitch in the casino’s system allowed unearned winnings to be downloaded onto their casino rewards cards. When they attempted to download the winnings from their mychoice account cards the transaction would be voided by the system, but still credited the funds, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The court documents charging the couple state that in 2014, between October and December, the system error at the casino was discovered by Eileen Sheldon. During that time nearly 3,000 downloads were made by her, many of which were captured on video surveillance, with a value of $582,353, $216,892 of which she redeemed in cash.
According to the charges, at the time of her arrest, she admitted to Missouri Highway Patrol’s Gaming Division investigators that she did cash out money at the casino that wasn’t earned by her. She also told them that she had told her husband Daniel T. Sheldon about the system error. Over the same period in 2014, 1,370 downloads were allegedly made by her husband, the value of which was $300,618. The charges state that $101,182 in cash was redeemed by him and that video surveillance also captured him.
As of Tuesday’s article, the husband and wife were not in custody and their bail was set at $100,000 apiece.
Meanwhile, gambling figures for the state released in March show River City and the Casino Queen led the St. Louis casino market’s strong performance in February.