The Count

How to play The Count

A former Connecticut funeral director who stole clients’ prepayments to fund his excessive gambling habit will spend the next seven and a half years in state prison.

Philip Pietras, 52, admitted to stealing from more than 170 people, many of whom are senior citizens who sought to limit the emotional and financial burdens placed on their loved ones by prepaying for their funerals. But instead of placing those funds, meant for caskets and burial services, in escrow accounts, Pietras pocketed the money to gamble.

Pietras accepted a plea deal from the state, and prosecutors expect him to enter a guilty plea on Oct. 23 and be formally sentenced on Jan. 22, 2027.

What is The Count?

The next development is increasingly being driven by Cubeia’s customers. Now the company is asking what customers will want to do with AI, Grenstad explains.

“We [recently] started asking, ‘What does this mean for the customer? What can the customer actually do with this?’ And I think we would have continued looking for that answer if the customer hadn’t come to us and said: ‘Can we let our AI agent deal with your data streams and use your platform?'”

One customer built its own casino landing page and wanted to use Cubeia’s APIs to make it work with the platform. “Another wanted to use Cubeia’s player account management system to build its own functionality, including personalised bonuses,” Grenstad recalls.

What is The Count?

I have also been impressed with the number of like-minded, empowered female CEOs and leaders I have met. I was recently added to a WhatsApp group exclusively for C-level women in iGaming. When I joined, there were already 150 women in the group, and I was told it started at just 20.

This community has become invaluable to me. Being in a C-role is isolating. You have to make difficult decisions and, unfortunately, you can’t be everyone’s friend all of the time. In fact, a lot of the time, it’s quite the opposite.

Having a community of women who understand that exact feeling, who have experienced these challenges themselves, and who can offer support without any judgment has been transformative. Finding that kind of space in a professional setting is challenging and I couldn’t be more grateful to the women in these communities.