Former Jaguars Employee Sues FanDuel Over Gambling Addiction

SportsGrid

Watch Former Jaguars Employee Sues FanDuel Over Gambling Addiction - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00All right, so here we go here.

00:05We knew about this story, I believe it was earlier this year, last year, there was an

00:09employee of the Jacksonville Jaguars who appears to be addicted to gambling, stealing a lot

00:15of money, allegedly, from the Jacksonville Jaguars, had a sentencing involved, reparations

00:20involved, where he basically was just taking funds from the Jags who make a fortune and

00:26using it to bet on sports.

00:28And now the same employee is suing the sports book, essentially, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:35for saying you guys should have stopped me from betting.

00:43Tell me where I'm wrong here about this and how in the world this is legitimate.

00:46Yeah, Craig, it really is a crazy story that we heard from first last year and doesn't

00:52seem to be going away.

00:54It's actually even more nuanced than that, though, because this is all around daily fantasy

00:58sports, not technically sports betting.

01:01And we'll get into that a little bit later, how that kind of creates an even more confusing

01:05case and adds even more ambiguity about who is right and who is wrong here.

01:10But you have Amit Patel, the former Jacksonville Jaguars employee who pled guilty last year

01:15to stealing more than twenty two million dollars from the team and then using that money to

01:20fund his daily fantasy sports play and also a lavish lifestyle, which included private

01:26jets and golf memorabilia from eBay.

01:29He's now suing Vandal, saying that they purposely ignored signs of problem gambling and allegedly

01:36coerced him to spending more and more to the point where he would have to hit rock bottom

01:41and accusing the company of ignoring anti money laundering protocols, essentially trying

01:46to get him to do this and pushing him to this place.

01:49He's currently serving six and a half years in federal prison in South Carolina for admitting

01:54to embezzling all that money.

01:56He also could.

01:57Oh, I think this is important to note.

01:59Eighty eight million dollars to the Jaguars, depending on the outcome of another civil

02:04case.

02:05He was already ordered to pay about 20 million dollars, which he probably does not have.

02:09And the Jaguars are also suing him in southern Florida for that extra 60 million dollars

02:14in change.

02:15He's seeking 250 million dollars here from Vandal, filed this lawsuit in the Southern

02:20District of New York on Tuesday, alleging that Vandal used things like VIP perks, a

02:26million dollars in credits to keep playing daily fantasy sports trips, the Super Bowl

02:30to all keep him hooked.

02:32It also names a former Vandal VIP host who actually now works at Fanatics.

02:36He says this guy targeted him and allegedly exasperated, exacerbated his addiction to

02:42the point where he would be texting him 100 times per day off of Vandal's platform, allegedly

02:47even acknowledging that he was breaking anti-money laundering protocols.

02:50So I think the really important thing here to note is the bulk of this activity was all

02:55daily fantasy sports, which in Florida, that was the only option you had at the time.

03:01This was before Hard Rock launched Vandal doesn't offer sports betting in Florida.

03:05So that wouldn't have been able to happen anyway.

03:08And while DFS has a lot of similarities to sports betting and in some cases outright

03:12elements that mirror gambling legally, it's treated very differently and very differently

03:17depending on the state.

03:19We have states rights to thank for that and the unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006,

03:24which created this whole kind of mess of is it fancy sports?

03:27Is it gambling?

03:28So he's saying that Vandal allowed this to continue and only notified the Jaguars once

03:33he owed all this money.

03:35But according to NFL rules, you can only really notify someone of something happening once

03:41they're placing the sports bet because working as an employee for a NFL organization and

03:47betting on sports is illegal.

03:49Daily fantasy sports, not technically sports betting, it's treated a little differently.

03:53So what I've heard from people close to the situation is once he actually tried to place

03:57a sports bet in a state that had sports betting on Vandal's platform, that was flagged to

04:02the team, which then triggered this investigation.

04:04And then fast forward months later, he's in jail.

04:06He owes millions of dollars.

04:08This whole thing has kind of unfolded.

04:10So to me, this kind of seems like a big swing from Patel and his lawyers to try to recoup

04:15some of that money that he allegedly owes.

04:17They've talked about his gambling addiction in the past, sort of saying that, you know,

04:21we acknowledge that he did a wrong thing here, but also he suffers from this addiction.

04:25So I would expect Vandal to fight this as hard as they can, especially considering that

04:31probably in their minds, they feel like they did the right thing and flagged this to the

04:34team under the rules.

04:36It's much, much harder to track people who are playing fantasy sports.

04:40But this case is, you know, one that won't go away.

04:42I'm sure this is not the last we hear on this lawsuit and the other lawsuits that are pending.

Category

Transcript

Recommended