Former slot supervisor investigated in thefts

Alana Roberts

Monday, March 8, 2004 | 11:14 a.m.

The Plaza hotel-casino has filed a civil lawsuit and the Nevada Gaming Control Board is pursuing criminal charges against a former slot shift supervisor for allegedly falsifying $125,000 in jackpot tickets.

The casino filed the lawsuit against Erik M. Allen on Wednesday in Clark County District Court, alleging he falsified jackpot tickets for slot machines beginning in January 2003 until he was caught and terminated in December. The lawsuit accuses Allen of fraud, conversion and unjust enrichment.

Allen admitted to taking the money in a voluntary statement to the Control Board, the lawsuit said. In the hand-written statement filed on Dec. 4, 2003, Allen promised to pay the money back.

"On or about in the month of January, I began solely falsifying jackpot tickets. For a year now, I probably have taken over $100,000 dollars. I don't know why I did it, I just did and I am truly sorry for the crime I have committed. I would like to pay back every cent ... I want to cooperate fully to help in the investigation," Allen said in the statement.

Allen declined to comment on the suit.

Although Allen admitted to taking the money and promised to pay it back, the Control Board is pursuing criminal charges with the Clark County district attorney's office, Keith Copher, chief of enforcement of the Control Board, said.

"Any time you're taking in the hundreds of thousands of dollars area you're talking quite a bit of money," Copher said.

No criminal charges have yet been filed against Allen.

Ike Lawrence Epstein, an attorney for the Plaza, said casino officials became suspicious and conducted their own investigation before turning over the information to the Control Board, which also conducted an investigation.

"There was an inordinate number of manual overrides for jackpots on the system," Epstein said.

"All of the machines are networked. If you have a jackpot on one of the machines, it will print up a ticket. The slot floor person can override that if there's a mistake. There was a large number of overrides for this particular employee and that's what tipped them," Epstein said.