MACOMB, Mich. – A teacher at Dakota High School faces an embezzlement charge after police allege she stole money from ticket sales to a homecoming dance and parent-student trip to fund her gambling habit.

Spanish teacher Christine Johnson, 29, served as the school’s student activity coordinator and collected cash for homecoming tickets and other school events since 2016, according to The Macomb Daily.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office reports:

… Johnson oversaw ticket sales for Dakota’s 2016 Homecoming dance, which, based on attendance, should have taken in nearly $30,000.

Johnson deposited only $11,000 into the school’s Homecoming account.  A search of Johnson’s classroom revealed several homecoming cash deposit envelopes that were torn open but empty. Johnson’s bank records also show 2016 cash deposits far in excess of her salary.

Johnson also oversaw ticket sales and receipts for a 2016 sixty-person student-and-parent trip to Camp Tamarack.  Johnson should have collected and deposited nearly $13,000 in fees.  Only $500 was deposited with the school.

Camp Tamarack made repeated unsuccessful attempts to collect payment for the trip and eventually contacted school officials, who launched an investigation that was later forwarded to the Macomb County Sheriff’s Department.

Johnson was put on paid administrative leave on May 3 “when district administrators discovered some accounting discrepancies in the school’s activity fund,” Chippewa Valley Schools Superintendent Ron Roberts wrote in a prepared statement.

Investigators searched Johnson’s classroom, where they allegedly uncovered receipts from the MGM Casino in Detroit alongside the open and empty homecoming envelopes. They later learned that Johnson spent more than $90,000 playing slots at the casino in 2016, WDIV reports.

“This teacher held a position of trust within the high school,” Prosecutor Eric Smith told the news site. “She repaid that trust by feeding student funds into a slot machine.”

“So often these embezzlements stem from one of two things — drug or gambling addiction,” Smith said. “In this case, it was gambling.”

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

Johnson allegedly spent the cash on penny slots.

“Many of these students will now remember their senior homecoming for all the wrong reasons,” Macomb Sheriff Anthony Wickersham told the Daily.

Johnson now faces a single count of embezzling between $1,000 and $20,000 from a non-profit organization, MLive reports.

The charge carries up to a 10-year prison sentence.

Johnson remains on paid leave as she awaits her next court date on Oct. 5.

“We have committed our full support and cooperation to the Sheriff’s Department and the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office in this investigation,” Roberts wrote. “We will do whatever it takes to ensure that our board policies are followed and that our employees are acting in the best interest of our school community.”