Epping man jailed over gambling fraud against Bet 365

Five years. ?? surely its down to them to prevent such scams

£236k ?? 

wow. did they mention denise is taking home £742,465 EVERY DAY courtesy of limiting anyone with a clue to buttons and targeting anyone her algorithms have signalled as "easy meat", often ruining their lives.

Hows about they stick a few of these crookster directors in the slammer by digging down into money laundering loopholes instead of issuing corporate fines.

5 years for bonus jiggery pokery- let him out if he's served 5 days.

Judiciary as corrupt as it ever was

What was his username on here?

paris -- Five years. ?? surely its down to them to prevent such scams

Yes but in the same way as it is up to banks to keep our money safe, you'll still get a long stretch if you go in with a sawn-off.

thought this was an April Fools story.

Someone has muddled the court papers, 5yrs for that is a joke, surely  get reduced on an appeal.

Got this from another website ...

This has been totally wrongly reported. The case was about multiple chargebacks against Santander.

No one is going to prison for having more than one account with 365.

Not sure. According to the story (at the bottom) his co-defendant who pleaded guilty to the Santander fraud got 16 months suspended.

Some further details because article is misleading

He had 150 accounts not 1000 and profited 80k over 6 years by employing matched betting strategy on bonuses. They disregarded the deposit value in the trial to make it look worse

Bank fraud was lying about salary on mortgage

—

5 years for copping minimum wage over a 6 year period.

It doesn't pass the smell test from the reports. If you were doing this on an industrial scale, it wouldn't just be one betting firm and using one bank would it.

What's the chances of all the people stealing the covid related handouts getting similar treatment, rinsing the taxpayer for £billions. Somewhere between zero and none.

Agreed. Something seems very wrong here.

How the feck can you be jailed for five years for fraudulently taking advantage of bookies (yet this is only b365) signing up bonuses? These bonuses are they to entice people. Get them in the door then fleece as many of them as possible.

I’d say we haven’t heard anywhere near the full story. If we have then it’s a pitiful waste of time and money. A four week court case!

Strange old carry on.. What about the the misrepresentation that 356 are a bookmaker who take bets? They defraud individuals daily. Shows how the authorities view anyone making a living from punting though..

On the face of it i think that if 12 of us were on the jury, the outcome would have been different, but of course we're not in possession of all the facts.

Could be abuse by affiliate[s]

Reminds me of a guy i knew at Corals he set a few bogus connect cards typical day punters come into the shop  writes a bet out 50 0n one the guy behind the counter would tell the guy to take a price as it is being well backed the punter would take the price ie 3/1 the guy would then scan one his bogus cards horse wins 5/1 here you are sorry it went out any idea where the 100 went.

It was only a matter of time.

Ronnie.

This is online only though (apparently). Impersonating people to open bank accounts (even if they have implied permission from the third party) on a mass scale is probably going to get you a custodial and cifas marker. The leap is why this collusion (apparently) only involved one bookie and bank. It's a pretty tedious affair anyway, just seemingly to take advantage of clean accounts for newbie loss leaders. Very odd. It would only make some sense if there was a particular loophole that could be exploited, related to 365.

He probably just wanted a tenner on at the advertised price - and realised he would need 1,000 accounts to do that

If some random defrauds you or me of the same amount, good luck getting anyone interested in even investigating, far less successfully taking it to court.

The sentence and the verdict is for the fraud against the banks...santander in this case

I am surprised he got 5 years,I have seen people put a glass in someone's face and get community service.

Bizarre! The lack of details in the Racing Post does not even constitute a criminal offence - he was found not guilty of money laundering. 5 years for what? Trying to hookwink the bookies? Did Santander suffer and financial loss?

The reporting by the Racing Post is so one-sided I'm surprised it passed its editorial compliance.

Crazy sentence.

Yes, this catch earned us all a few quid in the past until it became illegal. Now, the intellectuals, like me, have found other avenues to let money flow and return to us the richer! Good day, beaten heads.

Reminds me of the privatisation days , my household grew to at least six people , easy money .

Yes, I can remember the seventies, even before the Irish fools like the ones you know of. We had it all sewn up. Plenty of money was daily. We only had watch out for Blacky Fingers in Leeds Duncan Pub.

Very odd. It would only make some sense if there was a particular loophole that could be exploited, related to 365.

365 did have generous sign-up offers which i'm sure some people & their "friends" benefitted from

think i learnt never to take at face value whats printed by the MSM...

even 3 daze theyve uncovered another suspect who abducted madeleine mccann.

Five years clink for taking on B365's mythical largesse, designed by psychologists to suck in shoals of fish? Extraordinary sentence, the Judge's financial affairs should be forensically investigated! How many forumites on here have ever asked a mate to stick a bet on, on their behalf for whatever temporary reason, oblivious that it could be interpreted as unlawful and merit a spell in HMP? Racing Post once again proving it's under the control of its paymasters, the Bookmaking industry, and doesn't give a fig about the readers! Mind-blowing!

I find the report too far-fetched to be believed unless the Racing Post is guilty of selective content disclosure/spurious reporting or cut and paste. I opened an account with 'Paddy' ages ago, won on 1st bet, and 'Paddy' welched on accompanying free bet promotion. How'd this bloke manage to do what he did for so long, and with one bookie and one bank?

He and his accomplice were cleared of money laundering -
Bet 3 and 6 board should be doing time for facilitating that very crime.
Funny old world

WTF was Essex CID doing getting involved is this non criminal activity (they admit massive hours of case investigation) when the county is being ravaged by out-of-control drug and burglary gangs?

Probably should have only been given 3 years 6 months for defrauding hundres of thousands of pounds given his previous convictions.

The Racing Post report is just a rewrite of the Essex Police press release that was printed more or less verbatim in OP's link.

5 years is plausible because you can add multiple instances over a sustained time period of Wire Fraud and Money laundering.

They usually come down hard on this and it would’ve been easy for them considering 365 would’ve done most of the investigating for them.

I just hope he was able to hide most of this for when he gets out. I’m guessing that’s the issue here…365 couldn’t get the funds back so went for the vengeance route.

so if this guy had done all this and lost any deposits.. would 356 have made sure when the activity came to light that they reimbursed all funds.. 1.01 that will be a no then

@paris

"surely its down to them to prevent such scams"

So if I lift a Rolex from a jewellers because the owner turned his back for two seconds, I shouldn't go down for it as it was down to him to keep his stock secure?

You have to see it from 365's point of view imo - you've gone to all the trouble of pretending you are a bookmaker, you've generated 1000 new accounts via all your fake prices and false advertising and then you generate zero degenerate slot/casino addicts from those 1000 accounts.

Poor Denise must feel like a fisherman that lost all her bait without even getting a bite. It's an outrage!

longbridge.. thats the most idiotic post. Completely different scenario. If they didnt do their checks beforehand on the account holders etc, its their bad. Cant believe they were able to get it into a court room tbh

Thanks for the feedback - I will still beg to differ.

It would not matter if my imaginary jeweller left his shop unlocked for the afternoon while he went to the pub - his insurers might cavil at paying out, but I still have no defence in court if I walk away with the Rolex in my pocket.

Perhaps a better analogy would be buying a Rolex for £5,000 from a jeweller, then being convicted for fraud when the jeweller notices that he could have got £6,000 for it on eBay.

(Or, to put it in language B365 would understand: This bloke kept finding ways of getting 3/1 about things which ended up 3.5 on Betfair, so they called in the police.)

Nonetheless, to my mind it is a wake-up call to those who think that opening multiple accounts in different names is harmless bookie-baiting - a criminal conviction would blight most of our lives, I think?

Pretty decent analogy above, but the point remains that 356 should have picked up on the accounts at point of registration and certainly before deposits were accepted etc.If the guy had lost all deposits, they would not have taken any action, yet the guys actions were the same. Are they saying an action is only fraudulant if a loss is suffered to a party? Surely either the action is fraudulant or not, regardless of the outcome..

Longbridge.. maybe if bookies actually were bookies then they would not have such people finding ways of circumnavigating their restrictions etc?

Do we know whether he kept betting on all these accounts or if he left them dormant after picking up the free bet/s ?  Latter would have been a red flag.

I am not sure that is quite the point here - even if bookies took every bet without restriction, there is still an incentive to take multiple sign-up bonuses, which is what (as I read it) happened here?

Seems a grey area to me, could a customer who saw 3/1 offered about a horse but then be told its actually only 9/4 for proper money take said bookie to court for defrauding them by advertising a false price?

Now where's the switch you realise this is a criminal case and they don't happen because one party decides to take the other to court.

If they start going back through Historic Accounts , I'm probably looking at 6 months

I know people who have had Dozens of accounts with them , Paying 200 to People to open the Account , Be a couple on here and the Dog forum have probably had in the Region of 50 over the years

The 200 Sign up left them open to this happening

Shrewd_dude, indeed i do realise. which makes it all the more unfathomable that based on what has been written that the CPS believed any sort of fraud had occurred. Unless there was a 'victim' in this case to report the activity, how did it even come about?

There is more info at

https://www.essex.police.uk/news/essex/news/news/2023/april/man-jailed-after-betting-fraud/

for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Some points:

The court had heard how people willingly gave their details over to Howard, who then impersonated them to access Bet365 services

Not clear what the relationship was here - if they knew what was to happen with the details and received some payment, I can't see how he could have been accused of "impersonating" them. As we all know, some sort of ID would have been required, so it is difficult to see how this was obtained from unwilling participants.

He, therefore, collected bonuses to which he would never otherwise have been entitled.

But the people "impersonated" would have been entitled to bonuses and in addition substantial wagering is required to release the bonuses. His legal team should have grilled 365 about what they expect to happen to new customers and what they describe as a good customer.

Betting online in someone else’s name is against the terms of use

So f-cking what - if I contact the police when a bookie doesn't pay out, that's what they'll say to me. They might direct me to the small claims court but they will never open a criminal case.

The bank charges I assume are related to him using ID's to open accounts, but no loss is mentioned, so very much a technical offence.

Shrewd_dude, indeed i do realise. which makes it all the more unfathomable that based on what has been written that the CPS believed any sort of fraud had occurred. Unless there was a 'victim' in this case to report the activity, how did it even come about?

Not only did the CPS think that but a jury did after 4 weeks of trial as well.

I'm not sure how you would come to the conclusion that making a false pretence for gain wouldn't be potentialy fraudulent.

Because the people who have actually made the false representation to 356 are those who allowed their details to be used. They are the account holder according to the t&c,s...

well he got 5 years so u can't be right Dave. If it's him speaking on the phone (or placing bets online ) but the account holder is someone else what else is it but impersonating ?  Doesn't matter they knew about it.

Because the people who have actually made the false representation to 356 are those who allowed their details to be used. They are the account holder according to the t&c,s...

No it isn't. The person making the false pretence is the person making the false pretence that he is x when he isn't x.

Be interesting if they ever explored the days of 'master' accounts on here...

Shrewd.. What if it was the person named on the account logging on and phoning up etc, but just following instructions from person x? Its a minefield that bookies have invited on themselves it seems.

That might be the case, but no loss is suffered as a result of the alleged impersonation, as those allegedly impersonated were entitled to the bonuses.

3 6 5 thought they had "given 30k" to say 150 people  ( 150 x £200 )  They gave it all to Jon Howard.

You don't know what the arrangement was between Howard and the names. But in any case the names were entitled to the bonuses which had to be staked by real cash before release. There was no loss to 365.

The bottom line is this person was greedy. If he had done it with 10 people would this case have come up ? I guess NO.

They should have been forced to admit that they offer a sign up bonus because they want to ensnare compulsive gamblers and not being able to do that is what enraged them.

Dave we don't know but it's likely many of these people were not interested in betting. What if he had got 2 million people to do this ? No loss to 3 6 5  ?

Loads of Accounts Bought by people , They left themselves open to it , with the free 200  ,I'e Ill give u 200 to open an account for me ,Mind you the Accounts were used for betting  , Not defrauding the Company , Peoples accounts closed when Losing FFS , Just betting the wrong selection in the Eyes of 365 ,  Ur spot on Dave  , 5 years
insane IMO , People Defrauding the DWP for More money would not get this amount of time ..

Switch I suppose that would come down to the circumstances which presumably was the purpose of the 4 week trial for the jurors to determine.

Bizzare that Dave thinks fraud's not committed if the person being impersonated would have been entitled to the gain anyway.

One to remember the next time anyone is thinking about committing mortgage, loan, passport or benefit fraud etc. etc.

One to remember the next time anyone is thinking about committing mortgage, loan, passport or benefit fraud etc. etc.

Shrewd Most people committing such Frauds will not be worried about the LAW , imo

Shrewd_dude 24 Apr 23 14:14 
Not only did the CPS think that but a jury did after 4 weeks of trial as well.

It was a crown court case so presumably there was a jury, but interestingly the police report makes no reference to a jury.

George the article you posted states:

Jon Howard had always denied the charges but was convicted at the conclusion of a four-week trial ending on Tuesday, March 14 when he was remanded in custody until sentencing.

Exactly, convicted by who?

As I said, crown court cases usually have juries, but that report doesn't say "found guilty by a jury".

I'm not saying he wasn't but the report doesn't make that clear.

howard • April 24, 2023 2:33 PM BST
Dave we don't know but it's likely many of these people were not interested in betting. What if he had got 2 million people to do this ? No loss to 3 6 5

The bonus iirc is deposit matching and has to be 4x staked. This wasn't a matter of simply free money. As I said, those whose IDs were used would have been entitled to a bonus, even a million of them, so I can't see how 365 lost out, other than them not getting some gambling addicts. So effectively the police are protecting 365's right to ruin lives.

This report makes reference to a jury, and mentions another case involving bet365

The incident is the second time this year bet365 has found itself the target of fraudsters, with the first instance being a case of sporting integrity, Scottish lower league striker Kane Hester was accused of an intentional booking.

The Elgin City player was allegedly involved in a plot alongside three friends to deliberately receive a card in a game against Hiberianian, after placing bets on this to happen via bet365’s website.

https://sbcnews.co.uk/sportsbook/2023/04/24/bet365-236k-fraud-plot/

And the first words of the gambling act are

preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime,

So where is the enforcement action against 365, for clearly being associated with crime?

Just to clarify:

Elgin City striker Kane Hester cleared of defrauding Bet365 after jury returns 'Not proven' verdict

https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/elgin-city-striker-kane-hester-cleared-of-defrauding-bet365-306391/

We can safely say Dave wouldn't make a successful online bookie. You may want a million more accounts but you don't want them run by a shrewdie.  You know random new accounts will lose. Nothing wrong with that. It's business.

They deserve all they get , there restriction business over the years have led to most of the Multi Accounts I am aware of , And they must have known what was going on

They knew Howard , Would let the new Accounts play for a few Weeks then restrict again , and Round and round it went ,The Friends and Family Accounts

ELGIN City striker Kane Hester has been cleared of defrauding a bookmaker.

Hester (27) and his friends Calvin Parrott (27) and Brodie Stewart Myres (29) were cleared by a jury of scamming nearly £14,000 from Bet365.

The jury took less than an hour to find the charge not proven against the trio after hearing five days of evidence at Dundee Sheriff Court.

Hester's future playing career is likely to remain in the balance as football chiefs are expected to study evidence led during the case.

Outside court, Hester was asked to comment on what the case meant for his football career and replied: "No, sorry."

The trial heard that Hester had exchanged messages in advance of a cup match against Hibs in July 2019 in which he agreed he would deliberately get booked.

It was agreed that his friends had bet thousands of pounds online on Hester being booked and made nearly £14,000 when referee Willie Collum showed the forward a yellow card.

During a police raid on Hester's home after the match, detectives found £2,400 which he freely admitted he had been paid as part of the plot.

But the jury believed Hester's claim that when the match began he got caught up in the moment and forgot about what he had previously agreed to do.

He claimed he was an aggressive player and the "bad foul" on a Hibs player was just part of the match. However, the trial heard that he only averaged one booking every 17 games.

The court was shown footage of Hester's home being raided and the footballer telling officers he knew what they were there for and would take them to the cash

Hester said: "Do you know what would be easier? I know what you are talking about. There's no point mucking you about.

"I've got the money, it's at home. If I take you home and give you the money, that's what happened.

"I was booked in a game and my friends gave me money for it - £2,500."

Findlay Soutar (26) - who had the charge against him dropped during the trial - said £12,500 appeared in his Bet365 account after the match and said large bets had been placed through his account by co-accused Brodie Myres.

He told the jury he was paid £500 by Myres for the use of his account.

Soutar agreed that oil worker Myres was a semi-professional gambler whose own Bet365 account had been limited to £5 bets because he was winning too much money.

The court heard Myres owned a part-share in a horse and greyhounds and had also been banned by another bookmaker, William Hill.

Myres, who works in oil research and development, told the court that he often laid large bets and had once lost a £9,000 bet.

He admitted sending a message to Parrott advising him to tell Hester to "bloody half someone if he's not got one (a booking) by 30 minutes." Hester was booked on 29 minutes during the televised BetFred Cup match.

The jury was told that Myres, Parrott, Soutar and Hester's brother Lloyd Hester had all been members of a private Facebook group called Gamblers Elite.

Parrott and Myres handed £2,500 to Hester after being paid out by the betting firm.

https://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/elgin-city-striker-kane-hester-cleared-of-defrauding-bet365-306391/

^

Findlay Soutar (26) - who had the charge against him dropped during the trial - said £12,500 appeared in his Bet365 account after the match and said large bets had been placed through his account by co-accused Brodie Myres.

He told the jury he was paid £500 by Myres for the use of his account.

hmmmmm

When that happen Dave ?

doubt accounts were used for betting, he'd just have been nabbing the £200 a/c opener.  probably worked out 2500 accounts nets him half a million smackers.  as everyone else did, he just pushed it a bit too much, got the bank excited.  best keeping the napper well below the parapet

good point about the bank. It likely they got the whole process moving regards money laundering rather than 3 6 5 with the betting.  I remember my bank about 10 years ago mentioning to me betting wins of little more than a grand ffs.

wonder how paddy feels about fraud by false representation given the thousands of £108 bets he's placed into markets on the exchange under the guise of being an exchange punter ?

There are loads of banks that offer switching bonuses, it's quite easy to obtain them. You could easily get someone who isn't interested in playing the online game (not many people are), if they trusted you to allow you to use their profile to create multiple current accounts and access the switching bonuses and preferential saving rates. Say I gave them £200 I could probably make £1.5K, just with one person's details if they had not participated in switching previously.

The individual would be entitled to the bonuses and rates, they just don't have the gumption and/or inclination.

It's quite a moral question really, is that fraud or not. Technically it is for sure.

In the late 80s we were asked to investigate a serviceman who had emptied a fruit machine in the mess,lucky man we thought rather than any crime.However turned out he was in charge of the maintainance etc and had discovered a fault in this particular machine,paying out jackpots.Finding an actual offence took us through Stones Justice manual etc.

Eventually we settled on gaining a pecuniary advantage and successfully convicted under that,took no enjoyment from the experience as we felt he had done what most would have had they had the knowledge,the clincher being of course his abuse of position.

None of that here but I suspect this is where the CPS and Police tackled this particular issue i.e Obtaining a Pecuniary Advantage?

Until I read the full adjudication by the judge I still think the sentence is too severe for what he's done and has been reported; the BHA accepted a last-minute plea bargain with a deplorable employer (Mr Brisland) and his henchman (Mr Degnan) both of whom denied a bullying culture and mistreatment of staff existed in their yard until just before the hearing.

Caan Berry's take on the case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaaZSWvs4v0

Ignore the whinging about how unfairly bookies act. CB thinks the fraud was to claim the money back from Santander if the bets lost. He also says there must have been more to it, so it does not look like he has the inside track. Even if the fraud is as he states, there'd also have been signing on bonuses.

iGamingNext has what it claims is the full story.
https://igamingnext.com/news/bet365-fraud-jon-howard-inside-story/

Looks like the silly sod invited imprisonment if this bit is true:-

[Howard] then sought to release funds that had been locked up in accounts frozen by bookmakers. To do this, he initiated court proceedings against bet365 with the intention of having the frozen funds released. Only, he did so by using the personal details of another individual. The courts then contacted the individual to inform them that proceedings had been initiated in their name. At this stage, the person whose details Howard had used contacted bet365’s fraud team and stated they had no knowledge of anyone using their information. Bet365 then referred the claim to Essex Police for investigation.

Yeah that was silly, but really looks like he came across a c-nt of a judge.

"In the late 80s we were asked to investigate a serviceman who had emptied a fruit machine in the mess"

USS CAINE COME TO MIND ,and strawberry ice cream

v interesting Ram.  If that is true " initiated court proceedings against 3 6 5 "  he deserves double the sentence for stupidity.

Silly boy

Silly indeed - if you actually wanted to get done for "fraud by representation" then pretending to be someone else in order to sue a bookmaker - or anyone - is about as direct a way of inviting prosecution as I can think of.