6 ms·

Woman earning $750 a week gambles $3.7M

41 points by wombatmobile 6y ago

noodlesUK 6y ago
I don’t know what the solution is, but gambling (and particularly online gambling and video gambling) is a scourge on our society. I don’t think it should be outlawed, because adults should be free to make bad choices if they want to, but the level to which it is exploitive and harmful needs to be reduced. Does anyone have any good answers here?
- _carbyau_ 6y ago
  Well I don't. Generally I like education but education can only go so far. How do you help the people without the wherewithal - for whatever reason - to understand their actions and the actions of those around them in the bigger picture, while still treating them as discerning adults? I am not sure you can...
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    There are two parties in every gambling transaction. What about the responsibility of the house to detect ordinary people gambling way over their means?
    - nrmitchi 6y ago
      To further this point a bit, there is a difference between "gambling above their means yet within the realm of possibility", and "gambling so far above their means that clearly no one is using common sense". Gambling 100x your annual income feels like it belongs in the second category. Many other industries have KYC regulations (of some kind), but it seems like the gambling industry is excluded.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  The current configuration is a cluster: Jail the addict. Protect the profits. Don’t compensate the victim of theft. That’s a recipe for rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
- polartx 6y ago
  I think everyone can agree that the employee is the #1 scumbag in this story. I think a 4 year sentence is woefully inadequate for someone who effectively stole her employers retirement years, years he cannot replace. Some blame can be assigned the business owner. How can you go so many years without a 3rd party audid, or Some kind of second opinion to your finances? Though trust shouldn’t be so harshly criticized. The casino is in a tough spot. If it returns any money, it sets a precedent that would turn its industry on its head. It’s also not necessarily fair to its investors, and it would be hard to unwind all the hires, raises, and investments that were made with the fraudulently gambled winnings. It almost feels like a charity should be established and funded by the casino; a vehicle to right wrongs such as these, without admitting fault/setting a precedent. Heck the casino would even get tax write offs for the charitable donations
  - nonameiguess 6y ago
    I think it would set exactly the right precedent. Anyone else who receives stolen goods, whether knowingly or not, has to give it back, and might be found liable.
    - lupire 6y ago
      So I should require a full investigation of every customer's finances before any purchase? If you want to make the victim whole, that's what insurance is for.
      - scintill76 6y ago
        The courts will do the investigation for you. Why not have insurance on your end, in case the government seizes the money because it wasn't the criminal's to give to you?
      - ryandrake 6y ago
        If I rob a bank and use a bunch of marked bills to buy a nice dinner, the restaurant doesn’t get to keep that money when the police come knocking, does it?
- GhostVII 6y ago
  Maybe setup more saving vehicles similar to a 401k that let people put their money into savings before it hits their bank account. Like what if you could have part of your paycheck automatically sent to an account that your landlord/bank pulls from for your housing, have some put in a savings account that you can only access after x years, some that you can only spend on groceries, etc. Then people who know they have a problem can ensure they don't spend money they need for other things on gambling.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    You’re underestimating the gambling addiction. They’ll pawn the house, they’d even sell parts of their bodies if they could. It’s a horrible affliction
- aliyfarah 6y ago
  This is not the first story I've heard of employees stealing millions from their long term employer to fund their gambling habit, in fact it is shockingly very common. A solution is to have casinos track/report customer spending, if a customer is spending (and losing) very large sums of money (say over 50-100k), they should verify their income. I help run a small money remittence business and we're legally required to verify the payslips/income of customers who send X amount per fortnight (I forgot the limit as it's been a while since I dealt with compliance) and we send the data to a government body. If a small business can verify income and see where the money is coming from I don't see why casinos can't do the same. After I wrote this I realised this isn't actually feasible as people can just walk in to casinos without being identified (never been to one). Maybe this needs to change, maybe memberships should be required for entry into casinos, just like you would a gym. It's just crazy to me someone can swindle 3.7m without causing any alarms.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Gambling is as much an addiction as are hard drugs and it has similar effects on the brain circuitry. Im not a fan of this ‘sport’ at all. I witnessed how a friend ruined his life and aged 20 years within the timespan of 6 or 7.
- Akronymus 6y ago
  I am not above working for basically any industry. But gambling is the one I can NOT work in, due to ethics concerns.
- alpineidyll3 6y ago
  Simple idea: make advertisement of gambling and betting venues illegal.
beiller 6y ago
Is there some sort of corporate insurance for this kind of thing?
- Jermaine_Jabi 6y ago
  You can get insurance for anything, but surely one of the requirements would be to know what is going on in your own books...
tartoran 6y ago
Ouch, that is a horrible way to postpone retirement. It’s still hard to comprehend how that much money was stolen without any suspicion of any kind and over such a long period of time.
- geenew 6y ago
  I don't quite get how the loss could have such an effect. The article says "She hid her theft by creating dummy bills for suppliers and paying the money directly into her account." If I'm reading this correctly, fake bills were created and entered as expenses, which were then paid from the company bank account. If so, wouldn't the losses have shown up on the income statement? That would mean that the owner had the same amount of money he thought he had, but less than he should have had. Likely some details are missing from the article.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    If I understand correctly this went on for some years. I still find it hard to comprehend how it went undetected for so long. But it did happen so it’s clearly possible
    - wombatmobile 6y ago
      The article says her losses were $3.7m, but the amount she gambled far greater. > Mr Zeuschner has calculated that Clerke would have put a staggering $20 million through the poker machines at St Marys over the 17 years she was stealing money from his business. Perhaps she was repatriating the winnings, and so the signal of her losses were masked over time. $3.7m over 17 years = $218,000 per year.
  - boatmansloth 6y ago
    > I don't quite get how the loss could have such an effect. The main damage to the business was the revealing of the fraud and driving away the people who were going to buy it. Nobody is going to stick around for years waiting for court proceedings to finish up to complete a purchase of a small business - they’ll just find something else.
plorntus 6y ago
KYC and Source of Wealth info is pretty common in the gambling industry. For example at the company I worked at when you hit 2k EUR (or equivilent) your account would be locked until you gave information as to where the money came from. It's an overhead for sure but it should be the cost of running a gambling business. Gambling addiction is real and while it is the responsibility of the person not to defraud others to support their addiction the casino should have picked up on it. Just like you wouldn't expect a bar tender to continue serving someone who is practically on the floor passing out.
- neolog 6y ago
  Are there some common ways that people often get around those regulations?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
andromeduck 6y ago
How so you not notice a 15k/month shortfall? Assuming it was stolen at a constant rate.

41 points by wombatmobile 6y ago

I don’t know what the solution is, but gambling (and particularly online gambling and video gambling) is a scourge on our society. I don’t think it should be outlawed, because adults should be free to make bad choices if they want to, but the level to which it is exploitive and harmful needs to be reduced. Does anyone have any good answers here?

_carbyau_ 6y ago
Well I don't. Generally I like education but education can only go so far. How do you help the people without the wherewithal - for whatever reason - to understand their actions and the actions of those around them in the bigger picture, while still treating them as discerning adults? I am not sure you can...
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  There are two parties in every gambling transaction. What about the responsibility of the house to detect ordinary people gambling way over their means?
  - nrmitchi 6y ago
    To further this point a bit, there is a difference between "gambling above their means yet within the realm of possibility", and "gambling so far above their means that clearly no one is using common sense". Gambling 100x your annual income feels like it belongs in the second category. Many other industries have KYC regulations (of some kind), but it seems like the gambling industry is excluded.
wombatmobile 6y ago
The current configuration is a cluster: Jail the addict. Protect the profits. Don’t compensate the victim of theft. That’s a recipe for rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
polartx 6y ago
I think everyone can agree that the employee is the #1 scumbag in this story. I think a 4 year sentence is woefully inadequate for someone who effectively stole her employers retirement years, years he cannot replace. Some blame can be assigned the business owner. How can you go so many years without a 3rd party audid, or Some kind of second opinion to your finances? Though trust shouldn’t be so harshly criticized. The casino is in a tough spot. If it returns any money, it sets a precedent that would turn its industry on its head. It’s also not necessarily fair to its investors, and it would be hard to unwind all the hires, raises, and investments that were made with the fraudulently gambled winnings. It almost feels like a charity should be established and funded by the casino; a vehicle to right wrongs such as these, without admitting fault/setting a precedent. Heck the casino would even get tax write offs for the charitable donations
- nonameiguess 6y ago
  I think it would set exactly the right precedent. Anyone else who receives stolen goods, whether knowingly or not, has to give it back, and might be found liable.
  - lupire 6y ago
    So I should require a full investigation of every customer's finances before any purchase? If you want to make the victim whole, that's what insurance is for.
    - scintill76 6y ago
      The courts will do the investigation for you. Why not have insurance on your end, in case the government seizes the money because it wasn't the criminal's to give to you?
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      If I rob a bank and use a bunch of marked bills to buy a nice dinner, the restaurant doesn’t get to keep that money when the police come knocking, does it?
GhostVII 6y ago
Maybe setup more saving vehicles similar to a 401k that let people put their money into savings before it hits their bank account. Like what if you could have part of your paycheck automatically sent to an account that your landlord/bank pulls from for your housing, have some put in a savings account that you can only access after x years, some that you can only spend on groceries, etc. Then people who know they have a problem can ensure they don't spend money they need for other things on gambling.
- tartoran 6y ago
  You’re underestimating the gambling addiction. They’ll pawn the house, they’d even sell parts of their bodies if they could. It’s a horrible affliction
aliyfarah 6y ago
This is not the first story I've heard of employees stealing millions from their long term employer to fund their gambling habit, in fact it is shockingly very common. A solution is to have casinos track/report customer spending, if a customer is spending (and losing) very large sums of money (say over 50-100k), they should verify their income. I help run a small money remittence business and we're legally required to verify the payslips/income of customers who send X amount per fortnight (I forgot the limit as it's been a while since I dealt with compliance) and we send the data to a government body. If a small business can verify income and see where the money is coming from I don't see why casinos can't do the same. After I wrote this I realised this isn't actually feasible as people can just walk in to casinos without being identified (never been to one). Maybe this needs to change, maybe memberships should be required for entry into casinos, just like you would a gym. It's just crazy to me someone can swindle 3.7m without causing any alarms.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Gambling is as much an addiction as are hard drugs and it has similar effects on the brain circuitry. Im not a fan of this ‘sport’ at all. I witnessed how a friend ruined his life and aged 20 years within the timespan of 6 or 7.
Akronymus 6y ago
I am not above working for basically any industry. But gambling is the one I can NOT work in, due to ethics concerns.
alpineidyll3 6y ago
Simple idea: make advertisement of gambling and betting venues illegal.

beiller 6y ago

Is there some sort of corporate insurance for this kind of thing?

Jermaine_Jabi 6y ago
You can get insurance for anything, but surely one of the requirements would be to know what is going on in your own books...

tartoran 6y ago

Ouch, that is a horrible way to postpone retirement. It’s still hard to comprehend how that much money was stolen without any suspicion of any kind and over such a long period of time.

geenew 6y ago
I don't quite get how the loss could have such an effect. The article says "She hid her theft by creating dummy bills for suppliers and paying the money directly into her account." If I'm reading this correctly, fake bills were created and entered as expenses, which were then paid from the company bank account. If so, wouldn't the losses have shown up on the income statement? That would mean that the owner had the same amount of money he thought he had, but less than he should have had. Likely some details are missing from the article.
- tartoran 6y ago
  If I understand correctly this went on for some years. I still find it hard to comprehend how it went undetected for so long. But it did happen so it’s clearly possible
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    The article says her losses were $3.7m, but the amount she gambled far greater. > Mr Zeuschner has calculated that Clerke would have put a staggering $20 million through the poker machines at St Marys over the 17 years she was stealing money from his business. Perhaps she was repatriating the winnings, and so the signal of her losses were masked over time. $3.7m over 17 years = $218,000 per year.
- boatmansloth 6y ago
  > I don't quite get how the loss could have such an effect. The main damage to the business was the revealing of the fraud and driving away the people who were going to buy it. Nobody is going to stick around for years waiting for court proceedings to finish up to complete a purchase of a small business - they’ll just find something else.

plorntus 6y ago

KYC and Source of Wealth info is pretty common in the gambling industry. For example at the company I worked at when you hit 2k EUR (or equivilent) your account would be locked until you gave information as to where the money came from. It's an overhead for sure but it should be the cost of running a gambling business. Gambling addiction is real and while it is the responsibility of the person not to defraud others to support their addiction the casino should have picked up on it. Just like you wouldn't expect a bar tender to continue serving someone who is practically on the floor passing out.

neolog 6y ago
Are there some common ways that people often get around those regulations?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

andromeduck 6y ago

How so you not notice a 15k/month shortfall? Assuming it was stolen at a constant rate.