He hoped to turn a five cent winning video lottery ticket into a $50 pay out, but a Dakota Dunes man could now spend time in prison for felony forgery.
Thirty-seven-year-old Travis Law was in court in Vermillion Friday morning and entered not guilty pleas to the charges he faces.
Even thought Law did not admit to doctoring video lottery tickets, court documents and the clerk who caught him, say he was wearing a disguise about a month ago when he walked into Vermillion's Coyote Convenience Casino and tried to cash in a forged ticket.
"My boss was the one who put it all together and I agreed; he did look odd. He just caught my attention as being kind of weird," Coyote Convenience Casino clerk Ashley Allen said.
Allen is the clerk who was working when Law came into the store on June 27. She became suspicious right away because Law had been in the casino earlier that day. When he came back he was wearing a wig.
"His face was younger than the gray and yellow hair," Allen said.
She was also suspicious when she saw the ticket because she had heard about other cases of forged video lottery tickets that were presented at other casinos in the area.
"Because my boss had brought it to my attention, I could tell it was just different looking than the normal tickets," Allen said.
Investigators believe Law had cashed out a five cent ticket at the Vermillion casino and then tried to cash it in as a $50 ticket.
Court documents say authorities are investigating similar cases right now in Union, Yankton, and Minnehaha Counties, but a statewide criminal search shows that Law only faces charges in Clay County right now.
But the forgery charges are felonies meaning if the Dakota Dunes man is convicted that five cent ticket could cost him more than five years in prison.
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