The Jacksonville Jaguars made headlines a couple of months ago thanks to one of their employees. In a bombshell report, it was revealed that a Jaguars employee embezzled more than $20 million of the team’s money to support a sports betting habit. Now, things have escalated between the Jaguars and FanDuel. There is a disagreement as to what to do about the money that was bet.
Jacksonville Jaguars Ask FanDuel for $20 Million
In an ESPN report released earlier today, the Jaguars have been in contact with FanDuel about the funds their employee spent on FanDuel’s platform. The Jaguars asked FanDuel to return the funds that exceeded $20 million that was spent on FanDuel.
However, FanDuel seemed to have a different tune according to this report. One source with FanDuel revealed that the platform is adamantly refusing to give the money back to the Jaguars. On top of this, the source said they do not feel like that they owe the Jaguars any money whatsoever.
The Backstory
The Jaguars employee who did this is named Amit Patel. He was a finance manager for the team and already pleaded guilty to stealing over $20 million from the Jaguars. Patel apparently did this through a virtual credit card system over the course of 3.5 years.
Some people believe that Patel used these funds to pay for an overall luxurious lifestyle. However, Patel’s attorney claims this is not the case. He said that Patel had a “horribly misguided” effort to cover his gambling losses by using the team’s virtual credit card system.
FanDuel’s Liability
Does FanDuel have any real liability to cover the Jaguars’ expenses? There is an interesting argument about this.
On one end, you can argue that FanDuel is not responsible for what transpires within Jacksonville’s organization. On the other end, FanDuel may have been expected to do a little due diligence before accepting Patel’s bets. Two key things come into play here.
The first is getting an idea of how much income a client has compared to what they are gambling. Essentially, if they are only making $100,000 per year, they should not have $100,000+ worth of losses in sports bets within a year.
Another point raised here is checking bets for possible anti-money laundering. FanDuel has an obligation to make sure bets on their platform are not part of any scheme like that. However, considering the nature of this case, it may be a hard argument to make.
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