Vegas cabbie, wanting 'to do the right thing,' turns in $300,000 left behind by gambler

   John Getter / NBC NewsGerardo Gamboa, a Las Vegas taxi driver, returned $300,000 to a passenger. By M. Alex Johnson, Staff Writer, NBC NewsA big-time card shark has an honest cabbie to thank for the return of $300,000 he left in a Las Vegas taxi.The man — whom Las Vegas police wouldn't identify other than to describe him as a well-known poker player — left the money behind in a brown case when Gerardo Gamboa dropped him off Monday morning at the $500-a-night Palms Place hotel and spa.Cabdriver Gerardo Gamboa tells NBC station KSNV of Las Vegas that he had no interest in making off with any of the $300,000 a mysterious gambler left behind in his cab Monday,Gamboa — who's driven Yellow Checker Star cabs in Vegas for 13 years — immediately called his dispatcher and asked his next passenger to witness that he hadn't taken anything, he told NBC station KSNV on Tuesday."Why? Because it [doesn't] belong to me," the honest driver said. "I just want to do the right thing."When the doorman at Gamboa's next stop alerted him to the bag, Gamboa opened it up and pulled out a wad of about $50,000 in cash."It's all hundred-dollar bills. I said: 'Oh, my God! That's a lot of money in here!'" he said. "So I put back the money, and I called dispatch right away."Gamboa said he knew nothing about his mystery passenger, other than that when they arrived at the Palms Place, "he paid me $20 for a $9.90 trip and he asked for $5 change, so [it was] a $5 tip.""I appreciated that," he said. "That's 50 percent."As for the stash of cash he turned in, he said he'd never seen that much money before in his life — "in a movie only."The taxi company immediately named Gamboa its Driver of the Year and rewarded him with $1,000 and dinner for two at a pricey restaurant, The Las Vegas Sun reported.

'Nasty' stomach virus sidelines 90 at youth football tourney in Vegas

 Approximately 90 young players and adults from nine youth football teams were sickened by a “nasty” stomach virus while in Las Vegas for their championship games this weekend, according to the tournament organizers and the Clark County Fire Department.“It started with a team telling us they had a couple of sick kids, which frankly happens every single year,” said Justin Gates, a competition director with Sports Network International Inc., the group that organizes the National Youth Football Championships.But Gates said it quickly became clear that the illness was far more widespread, with miserable players, parents and coaches throwing up and experiencing other flu-like symptoms.“We didn’t think much about it on Wednesday night until we started getting reports later Thursday of more people on different teams being affected,” he said.By Friday night, the illness was flattening players like an all-star linebacker.The Clark County Fire Department responded to a call at about 10 a.m. on Friday from members of a team from Santa Monica, Calif., who were staying at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino, Officer Fernandez J Leary told NBC News."We evaluated 21 people on scene and 18 of them were transported to a local hospital," Leary added.Gates said  other affected teams -- including two local teams and one from Colorado -- were staying in different hotels. Some players and their family’s feared food poisoning and went to local hospitals for treatment on their own, but emergency room doctors ruled that out.“That’s what had the Health Department scratching their heads, there wasn’t one common factor,” he said.The Health Department of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas worked with the Center for Disease Control to determine the cause after players from other teams started getting sick, Gates said. They eventually identified "a nasty stomach virus” as the culprit, he said.Jorge Viote, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Health District, confirmed Saturday that investigators suspect that a stomach virus caused the outbreak but are continuing to investigate. The CDC referred questions about the outbreak to the local health department.Despite the spate of sickness, Gates said the championship games were proceeding as scheduled, with the final games being played on Saturday “Luckily as strong as it is, the harder it comes on the quicker it goes,” he said, noting that many players were already feeling well enough to play.He also noted that the number of affected players was a small portion of the 7,000 on hand to participate in the games.Nonetheless, event organizers were implementing procedures to prevent further spread of the virus, he said, including banning the traditional pre-game and post-game handshakes.“It would be silly to think if somebody got sick because we had them shake hands,” he said.