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It seemed like the saga of the former Jacksonville Jaguars employee who stole $22 million from the team came to an end earlier this year when he was sentenced to more than six years in prison, but the case has taken yet another turn now that he’s suing FanDuel for more than ten times that amount.
Most multibillion-dollar businesses have plenty of safeguards in place to make sure their employees aren’t mishandling their funds. However, that was not the case with the situation that allowed Amit Patel to steal from the coffers of the Jacksonville Jaguars over the course of four years before the scheme blew up in his face.
Patel was the only Jaguars employee tasked with overseeing the virtual credit card payments the team used to cover various operating expenses when he was promoted in 2019 a year after being hired, and he used that position to illegally pocket more than $22 million before the franchise realized something was amiss and subsequently fired him in 2023.
Patel used some of those funds to buy a Tesla, two condos, a Patek Phillipe watch, a country club membership, and a putter that once belonged to Tiger Woods, but the vast majority of the money was used to fuel a gambling habit that saw him lose $20 million on FanDuel.
Earlier this year, Patel was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to theft, and over the summer, the Jaguars sued him for more than $66 million in an attempt to recoup the lost funds (including those that FanDuel has refused to fork over).
According to ESPN, the disgraced employee has now decided to get in on the action by filing a lawsuit of his own for $250 million that asserts the sports betting platform “intentionally targeted and preyed” on his addiction by giving him more than $1 million in free credits and trips to premier events including the Super Bowl and The Masters in an attempt to keep him hooked.
The lawsuit also claims the “VIP host” assigned to Patel’s account told him they were violating the rules the platform has in place to prevent the money laundering that the convict was firmly engaged in, and his lawyer says the decision to sue FanDuel is partially designed to prevent them from “actively enticing addicted gamblers in the future.”
At first glance, it appears the case is built on a fairly rocky legal foundation (the situation is basically akin to casinos that employ hosts to ensure whales keep spending money at the tables), but I guess we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out.