Cabbie finds, returns $300,000

(CNN) -- A Las Vegas cabbie had no second thoughts when he found $300,000 in cash in a brown paper bag in his cab this week.

He made sure it was returned to the forgetful owner.

"I don't care from $10 to higher. My dignity is not for sale, and that's the way I am. That's the way our parents taught us when I was a kid," cabbie Gerardo Gamboa told CNN affiliate KVVU. "All I wanted to do was just call my dispatcher and return it, and this is the only chance I have to show cab drivers in Las Vegas are not bad people."

The loser of the money -- at least temporarily, thanks to Gamboa's good deed -- was a famous 28-year-old professional poker player, whom officials weren't publicly identifying, according to another CNN affiliate, KLAS.

The gambler was so devastated at his loss Monday that "he wanted to shoot himself in the head," a cab company official told KLAS.

"He was grateful. He was very understanding; he wasn't irritated. To a point he was irritated, but he wasn't mad or aggressive or anything. Maybe a little more embarrassed than anything. I mean, he left $300,000 in a cab, but he was an awesome guy," Yellow Checker Star field operations manager Joel Willden told KVVU.

The chief operating officer of the cab company described the sum as the most found in a cab in his 32 years in the business.

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