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Remember that crazy story that broke at the end of 2023 that involved a Jaguars exec who siphoned over $22 million from the team? Well, the story has a new twist and it’s almost as shocking as the original plot.
This staffer is essentially blaming FanDuel for the $22 million in stolen funds — saying the betting platform fueled his betting addiction that necessitated the stealing over a three-and-half-year period. Frivolous lawsuit or not, it’s a crazy story worth reading up on based on the semantics alone. Keep reading and we’ll bring you up to speed.
Why FanDuel Is To Blame (Allegedly)
The former Jacksonville Jaguars exec has a name — Amit Patel. He is currently in prison for the stealing of money. However, at the start of October, he filed lawsuits against Boyd Gaming, Flutter Entertainment, and Fox Corp in federal court in New York. The sticking point of the lawsuit is this: “defendants knew and/or took intentional steps to avoid knowing that the money gambled by the plaintiff was stolen or otherwise not from a legitimate source”.
Before you completely write the guy off, let’s hear his points. Patel contends that FanDuel knew he worked for the Jags. That makes sense because anyone betting this much has a “VIP host” attending to their every need. You’d have to guess this relationship, which is really deep, will progress enough to know where one works, right? So we believe Patel here.
Here’s the twist: NFL employees are not allowed to bet on the NFL — something FanDuel knows and is supposed to monitor. If a player gets busted gambling on the site, FanDuel is supposed to notify the league, and we assume the same goes for team employees. So Patel is saying FanDuel failed to put him on a non-voluntary exclusion list as an NFL employee, which should’ve happened.
FanDuel Added Fuel To The Fire
Patel is an addict. He claims to have been diagnosed with “severe gambling disorder” in April 2023 — right after he quit betting. But before then, Patel is blaming FanDuel for abetting his addiction (pun fully intended).
The lawsuit details Patel’s addiction, which motivated the stealing. His poison or choice was daily fantasy sports — a game type popularized by FanDuel when it broke into the legal sports betting scene in 2016.
Patel’s VIP host is said to have credited him with $1.1 million in credits. Not only that, but Patel was gifted tickets to big-time sporting events, including the Super Bowl and the Masters golf tournament. Patel claims this “wooing” — which included being contracted a 100 times a day if he didn’t bet — took advantage of his obvious gambling addiction.
“Defendants exploited plaintiff’s problem gambling disorder to his detriment and for its own benefit by ceaselessly enticing plaintiff to deposit and gamble massive amounts of money,” reads the complaint.
VIP hosts are commonplace in the industry — not just online betting sites, but physical ones too. Las Vegas betting popularized this as a way to take care of high-spending players. It’s an open secret this is to bilk more money out of them. After all, what’s the point of free Super Bowl tickets if the bookmaker won’t get something in return? That something being gambling losses.
Jaguars Want Money From FanDuel
FanDuel’s woes don’t drop with a lawsuit. No, no, the Jaguars are after them too. Back in February, not long after this bombshell story broke, it was reported that the franchise was seeking reimbursement for the stolen funds — either all of it or at least a chunk back.
One unnamed source close to FanDuel’s thinking quipped to ESPN: “the way they see it … we got this money fair and clear. It’s not our problem that we have to forfeit it back to you.”
As far as we can tell, no repayment has been made. No news has come out here, but it was a point of contention early on.
DraftKings Also To Blame
The majority of Patel’s ire is for FanDuel, hence why its parent company, Flutter Entertainment, is being sued. Boyd Gaming and Fox Corp are two of FanDuel’s biggest shareholders so that’s why they’re in the suit too.
DraftKings is not being sued, but Patel’s suit also mentions betting on FanDuel’s biggest rival. DraftKings is also the pioneer of daily fantasy sports — Patel’s game of choice — just like FanDuel. Both started as DFS plays before morphing into full-on sportsbooks. Not including offshore sportsbooks, FanDuel and DraftKings are neck and neck in market share for wagering. Sources say Patel’s losses on DraftKings were $1 million, while slightly around $21 milly on FanDuel. Patel played under the username of “ParlayPicker” and other players knew he was notoriously bad.
Patel was able to “game the system” via a virtual credit card system the Jaguars used for expenses. This card was then used to fund his betting accounts directly.
Earlier this year in March, Patel pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison — a sentence he serving at the Williamsburg Federal Correctional Institute Satellite Camp in South Carolina. The charges he pleaded guilty to were wire fraud and engaging in an illegal monetary transaction.
We’ll monitor this lawsuit story to see if it has any legs.
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