Las Vegas Poker Community Rocked by Tragedy as Two Familiar Faces Die in Apparent Murder-Suicide

What began as another spring evening in Las Vegas ended in a story that has left a deep scar on the city’s poker community. Two local players, men known around small-stakes games and long familiar to regulars on the Strip, are dead after what police and local reporting described as an apparent murder-suicide that unfolded on March 26 in the southwest valley and later spilled onto the Las Vegas Strip.

According to police details cited by local media, officers were called to a home near Buffalo Drive and Mountains Edge Parkway at around 5:30 p.m. after a reported stabbing. When they arrived, they found 70-year-old Keith Budner suffering from multiple stab wounds. Despite efforts by first responders, Budner was pronounced dead at the scene. A second call soon followed from a family member, who told police that a man had contacted them claiming he had killed Budner and was heading to the Strip to take his own life.

That man was later identified as 56-year-old Scott Yeates. Police said officers made contact with him at a Strip parking garage, where he then jumped to his death. Yeates also posted a one-word message on Facebook that night: “Sorry.”

For poker fans, the shock runs deeper than the crime report itself. This was not a case involving strangers to the game. Budner had recorded live tournament cashes for years, while Yeates was known not only as a player but also as a longtime industry figure. Yeates had tournament results dating back to 1996 and had worked at PokerStars as a VIP program manager before later joining Ultimate Poker in Nevada. Budner, meanwhile, had established himself as a regular with documented live results stretching back many years as well.

*Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Las Vegas (Nevada, USA), The Venetian*

That is what makes the story especially unsettling. In poker, people often know each other less through official résumés than through long nights in cardrooms, shared tables, familiar routines and years of crossing paths in the same local circles. The game builds its own kind of community, one held together by repetition and recognition. And when tragedy hits inside that world, it feels personal in a way that results, rankings and Hendon Mob pages never fully capture. The names are not just names; they are seats once filled, conversations once had, and faces players expected to see again.

For now, the facts remain painfully simple and devastating. Budner is gone. Yeates is gone. And a corner of Las Vegas poker is left trying to process how a relationship that reportedly involved the two men living together ended in such horrifying fashion. In a city built on action, noise and motion, this is one of those moments when the cards suddenly feel irrelevant, and the only thing left at the table is silence.

Sources: Wikimedia, 8newsnow, PokerScout