A professional gambler charged with murdering his parents last year in their Pleasanton country club home hoped to reap an early inheritance to pay off mounting gaming and other debts, authorities say.

Ernest Scherer III, 30, was arrested Monday in Las Vegas and charged Tuesday in Alameda County with two counts of murder for the deaths of Ernest Scherer Jr., 60, and Charlene Abendroth, 57.

Their bodies were found in their home on the grounds of the Castlewood Country Club on March 14. In an arrest affidavit, Alameda County sheriff's Sgt. Scott Dudek said the younger Scherer had been in a "desperate financial situation" and needed his parents' inheritance.

Scherer's parents were beaten and stabbed in their 4,000-square-foot, three-level home, apparently after returning from dinner at the country club the night of March 7. Their pajama-clad bodies were found a week later.

Scherer Jr. was a real estate investor and Republican activist who dabbled in professional poker. He was also a longtime critic of the San Ramon Valley school district, on whose board he served for two years; he was recalled in 1990.

Abendroth, his wife of 31 years, was a Cal State East Bay accounting lecturer and was active in her local Mormon church.

Scherer Jr.'s love of poker was shared by his son, who quit his job in the mortgage business in 2002 to become a professional poker player. He has earned $339,000 at the game, according to the poker statistics site the Hendon Mob.

Dudek wrote that Scherer "did not appear to show much emotion" at the deaths. He seemed more interested in getting a look at the will, hoping that it would give him as much as $1.5 million, Dudek said.

Investigators said Scherer had borrowed $616,000 from his parents to buy a condominium in Brea (Orange County), and that his father had been seeking repayment. The home went into foreclosure proceedings after the slayings.

The younger Scherer and his wife lacked stable income, had $40,000 credit card debt and other debts and had failed to pay property taxes and mortgage payments, investigators said.

The elder Scherer told his own father that Scherer III appeared to be a compulsive gambler, Dudek wrote.