Casino News Round Up: Mickelson Bets Away Millions, Lotto Ticket Expires & More
This week’s casino news starts off with defending PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson, who apparently has endured some big losses in betting. Lefty won’t be at this week’s PGA Championship and it might be a good thing given the headlines.
Mickelson Unauthorized Biography Claims Lefty Lost $40 Million Gambling
An unauthorized biography just painted a rough picture of defending PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson. It was just released from an excerpt that the professional golfer lost approximately $40 million betting on sports during a four-year span. The excerpt also said that his net income was estimated to be just over $40 million a year.
The golfer was able to get himself into the World Golf Hall of Fame back in 2012 after picking up 45 wins on the PGA Tour. Among those were six majors and three Master’s jackets as well.
Mickelson has been known to place bets with friends throughout his career as a golfer. There were rumors that have been around for a while about Mickelson taking part in large bets with other professional golfers. Nobody is quite sure if the PGA Tour will punish Mickelson for his actions but it’s also unclear if they have evidence of any wrongdoing other than hearsay.
Mickelson has had a rough time of things recently, which included some off-color comments on a separate golf tour. He issued an apology and has not been back to play on the PGA Tour since. On Friday, he pulled out from the PGA Championship, so he will not be at the major this coming week to defend his crown.
$1 Million Lottery Ticket Expires In Michigan
One lottery player missed out — big time.
Someone just lost out on a million bucks.
Some anonymous person had previously won the Powerball Michigan Lottery but nobody has come forward to claim it. A winning ticket was announced on May 5th last year but after a full 365 days, nobody has stepped up to produce the slip. We just recently the one-year deadline, so now the reward will now go to the state of Michigan.
If you’re worried that they’re just pocketing it, that’s not the case. The money is supposed to go into the education fund that is currently set up. However, it still hurts to know that somebody left life-changing money on the table.
The current record for an unclaimed lottery prize in the state is set at $34 million. This happened back in 1998. It’s not entirely surprising when a big lottery ticket expires. This has been happening across the country every once in a while. For example, a $1.25 million winning ticket in Florida went unclaimed earlier this year too.
Michigan Seizes 100 Unregulated Gambling Machines
Sticking around in the state of Michigan, while they’ve legalized some forms of gambling recently, they’re also cracking down on the illegal options, like unauthorized gambling machines.
The Michigan Gaming Control Board reported a raid of illegal gambling where it was announced that 100 gambling devices were seized in the process. Along with the machines, a total of $29,204 was taken in gambling profits and 62 gift cards were picked up as well.
This was the result of a joint investigation that was controlled by both the Michigan Gaming Control Board and the Michigan Department of Attorney General. This first started after a tip was sent in about a location in Burton. This tip ultimately led to another location being figured out shortly afterward.
The Burton location had 35 of those 100 machines. They had 23 computer towers on top of that. As for a different location on State Road, 65 machines were taken and 54 computer towers were picked up from there. While there is still a lot of unregulated machines likely out there in Michigan, these raids shut down a good chunk of those operations.
