The circumstances surrounding the events are still under investigation
On March 26, Las Vegas police responded to a stabbing call near Buffalo Drive and Mountains Edge Parkway around 5:30 p.m. Following the initial investigation, it was revealed that the victim was allegedly murdered as part of a murder-suicide that involved two popular poker locals.
Police found Keith Budner, 70, with multiple stab wounds at the residence. He died at the scene. Shortly after, a family member contacted authorities. A man had called them, said he killed Budner, and was heading to the Strip to end his own life. That man was Scott Yeates, 56. Officers found him at a Strip parking garage. He jumped. His final Facebook post that evening was a single word: “Sorry.”
The two men had been living together prior to the incident.
Budner had accumulated live tournament cashes over many years and was a familiar face among local regulars. Yeates had a longer paper trail — tournament results going back to 1996, a stint as a VIP program manager at PokerStars, and later a role at Ultimate Poker when the platform launched in Nevada.
Neither was a household name in the broader poker world, but that almost makes this harder to process. Local poker communities run on familiarity. The same faces at the same tables, year after year. People know each other through late nights in cardrooms, not press releases. Budner and Yeates were that kind of known — the kind you notice when they’re not there.
The investigation is ongoing, and no motive has been officially confirmed.
