Posted on: December 30, 2022, 01:22h.
Last updated on: December 30, 2022, 01:37h.
Rivers Casino Des Plaines in Illinois believes more than a dozen employee paychecks were intercepted in the mail and illegally cashed.
Coowned by Churchill Downs and Rush Street Gaming and fully operated by the latter, the payroll department at Rivers Casino Des Plaines earlier this month observed discrepancies in some workers’ cashed paychecks. Casino management noticed that at least a dozen paychecks mailed to employees’ home addresses had been cashed oddly, with some check values allegedly altered.
Since the alleged issue involved the mail, Rivers officials contacted the US Postal Inspection Service, which has since spearheaded the investigation. Rivers says its casino workers have been made whole with new paychecks.
The checks ranged in value from $300 to $1,600. More than a dozen checks are thought to have been compromised.
Rivers Casino Des Plaines is located adjacent to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The casino opened in 2011. Today, the 78,000-square-foot gaming floor is equipped with nearly 1,500 slots and 100 table games, plus a BetRivers Sportsbook.
Rush Street is a Chicago-based gaming operator. Churchill Downs is headquartered in Kentucky.
Incident Details
Payroll team members at Rivers Casino Des Plaines detected that some of the mailed paychecks had been altered in who the checks were made payable to.
Local police said after reviewing the paystubs it appeared the names and amounts on the checks had been altered. The checks were mostly cashed at currency exchanges and other quick-cash establishments in the Chicago area.
I would urge any victim of mail theft to contact local law enforcement and the Postal Inspection Service as soon as possible so we can better investigate the crime and hold those responsible to justice,” said Spencer Block, a spokesperson for the US Postal Inspection Service.
Rivers did not say how much the value the alleged theft of the mailed checks totaled.
To reduce the chances of mail theft, Block encouraged the public to only drop mail in official US Postal Service collection boxes before the last daily scheduled pickup, or to hand mail directly to a postal worker inside a post office.
Table Game Theft
It’s been a busy month for Rivers Casino Des Plaines security. In addition to the allegedly fraudulent checks, the casino needed law enforcement back on Dec. 19 when its surveillance team caught a gambler allegedly in the act of cheating.
Christian Savitz, 35, of Waukegan, was charged by the Des Plaines Police Department after the casino said he cheated while playing baccarat. Casino security’s “eye in the sky” said Savitz was caught moving his chips to a winning section of the felt while the dealer was distracted.
Savitz was wrongly given $1,005 by the dealer. He then immediately tried to cash out his winnings, but was later intercepted by security. The Cook County State Attorney’s Office subsequently approved of a felony theft by deception charge against Savitz.
A Class 2 felony because the alleged theft involved stolen value of property in excess of $150, a person found guilty of such a charge in Illinois faces as much as seven years in prison.