Las Vegas Couple Arrested After Brazen $650,000 Theft at Primm Valley Casino

John and Lydia Salmen were arrested in Las Vegas on charges stealing cash and chips from the Primm Valley casino cage, possibly motivated by medical expenses. (Image: Jorge Tutor / Alamy) 

Police arrested a married couple on Friday, just one day after they allegedly walked away with more than $650,000 stolen from the Primm Valley Resort and Casino in Primm, Nevada.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department says that Lydia Salmen, 70, and John Salmen, 63, are being charged with theft of more than $100,000 and attempted burglary of a business. 

Police Find Cash, Chips at Couple’s Residence

According to police, $625,000 in cash and $27,000 in casino chips were found at the couple’s residence in the Desert Shores neighborhood of northwest Las Vegas.

Video from Primm Valley shows a woman wearing a yellow sweatshirt jumping over the counter of the casino valley a little after 5:30 pm on Thursday, according to police. The woman enters a restricted area that was not being supervised at the time. The woman then walked to and from a 2011 Nissan outside multiple times before police say she fled the casino with her husband. 

When police arrived at Primm Valley to investigate the incident, they learned from a casino employee that the same woman had caused “a disturbance” at the casino on June 25. A man, who she said was her husband, then arrived and left with the woman.

That same day, a Las Vegas police officer happened to be at the casino for an unrelated matter. His body camera footage saw the woman, the vehicle she entered, and the license plate on that vehicle, allowing police to track the registration. Police say this ultimately led them to the Salmen residence. 

Police: Medical Debts are Possible Motive for Theft

At their home, police say they found a potential motive for the crime. The arrest report states that officers found a notepad found in the home noted that “insurance would not pay for certain medications, as well as a bill for $12,039.41.” 

Police say they found a total of $625,569.47 in currency, along with $27,000 in chips and some additional coins in the two-story house in a moderately upscale Las Vegas neighborhood. Authorities took the cash and chips to be counted at the Silver Sevens Casino, which is owned by Affinity Interactive, the same company that owns Primm Valley.

“We thank the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) for swiftly recovering all but $300 and arresting several people for the theft that occurred at the Prim Valley Casino Resort on July 18,” Affinity Interactive Chief Marketing Officer Brad Egnor said in a media statement. “Due to the resort’s robust security protocols and collaboration with the LVMPD, the incident did not impact any guests or team members.”

The incident is just the latest example of a large-scale theft at an American casino over the past year, though few have been as straightforward as the Primm Valley burglary. 

Last July, a man allegedly tricked an employee of Four Winds Casino in Hartford, Michigan into giving him $700,000 of the casino’s funds. A similar crime took place in June 2023, when a man allegedly contacted a cage supervisor at the Circa Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas claiming to be the casino’s owner, and managed to receive payments worth a total of $1.17 million.