By Gabriel Princewill
A Ladbrokes account manager who abused his position of power and broke company rules by agreeing a lofty pay out of close to £1m is in deep trouble. The manager, whose identity is not yet known, attempted to cover up his corrupt conduct of unprofessionalism by splashing out a series of lavish gifts, holidays, and agreeing a jackpot settlement to cover his tracks.
Ladbrokes is under investigation over the agreement to pay nearly £1 million to victims of a problem gambler who funded his habit with stolen money, in exchange for not informing the industry’s regulator. The shameful misconduct was exposed by the Uk Guardian Newspaper in whom the problem gambler anonymously confided in. Heads will have to roll on this one, and The Eye Of Media.Com will be keeping a close eye on developments, as would investigators from the Guardian.
The businessman who runs a business in Dubai admitted stealing money from clients in order to finance his ridiculous £60,000 habit. Unfortunately for all parties involved, five of those clients complained to Ladbrokes. The Uk Guardian newspaper first exposed the story on Monday, putting the bookmaker in hot water over the irrefutable claims.
Ladbrokes in a panic , subsequently offered a total sum of £975,000 in a clandestine exchange designed to avert a damaging complaint to the Gambling Commission. In retrospect, it was to no avail. Gifts worth thousands of pounds spanning a two year period were supplemented with free tickets to football matches and business class flights. The expensive benefactions including tickets to see the Floyd Mayweather v Marcos Maidana boxing match in Las Vegas and an invitation to the company box at Royal Ascot. The Gambling Commission which only a few months ago have meted out heavy punitive fines to other transgressing betting operations, are getting ready to dish out a heavy fine in this case.
And unlike other cases in the past in which offending company’s have been fined, The Eye Of Media.Com will be demanding that specific action is taking not just against the corporation, but the manager too. There will be no escaping this one.The Guardian saw emails revealing undeniable agreements by Ladbrokes to pay for business class return flights from Dubai to London, worth more than £2,000, so that he could attend the north London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham.The company also sent him Fortnum & Mason hampers at Christmas and placed a birthday gift of £3,500 credit in his account, as well as regular gifts of free bonus chips, to be used to place bets.
The account manager wrote in one email seen by the Guardian: “Don’t know if you know about this but there is a new law in place imposed by the Gambling Commission to have on file provenance of funds from its top customers.” Therefore, the account manager was conscious of rules that insist on the source of funds to be checked in cases involving top gamblers.
The account manager also went on to ask for a bank statement showing the addict’s income “to comply with the regulator’s policy”. When he didn’t receive a response, the account manager wrote: “Don’t worry mate won’t need this now.”As the gambler wrestled with his addiction, a fresh text message from the account manager arrived that read: “Just checking no issues your side mate as notice you haven’t played with us for two weeks.” When he received no reply, the Ladbrokes employee wrote: “Morning mate, I’ve put a £5k bonus in your sports account for you.”
A Gambling Commission spokesperson said: “We are inquiring into this matter to ascertain the full circumstances. Our rules clearly set out that gambling businesses should work with us in an open and cooperative way.
“This includes disclosing to us anything which we would reasonably be expected to know. If we find that a gambling business is not doing this then we will consider what action is necessary.”
A statement from Ladbrokes Coral said: “We do not comment on individual customer cases.
“However, where we are able to agree a settlement to a dispute with a customer, it is a standard provision of such settlement agreements that the parties keep its content confidential.
“This is quite separate from our own reporting obligations to the Gambling Commission. We notified the commission of this case at the relevant time and will continue to co-operate with our regulator.”