A gambler who had the luck many others would never have was sentenced to spend 12 months in jail this week for a £34,000 ($41,000) luxury clothing scam.

Slippery Slope between Gambling and Addiction

Reece Casey, 31, from Dudley, in the West Midlands, returned to Newcastle Crown Court on Wednesday to hear his sentence after pleading guilty to the charge of defrauding people out of money at a previous court hearing, reported Daily Mail.

Casey scammed £34,000 from 25 victims by claiming he has a friend who is working at the luxury clothing company Flannels and can pull some strings to ensure a 40% discount on purchased goods. He began scamming people to finance his “entrenched lifestyle of gambling” after squandering a £54,000 (65,500) win from William Hill in 2018 and a £164,000 ($198,900) win from EuroMillions in 2019.

But as his gambling which began at the age of 15 turned into an addiction, Casey lost all his betting and lottery winnings, and to continue financing his gambling habit, he decided to defraud people out of money and in June 2021 took to Snapchat to advertise that he can offer a 40% discount at Flannels via a friend who works there.

As the people who wanted to take advantage of the discount offer had to send the money for their purchases directly to Casey, he managed to scam 25 people in Sunderland, according to Katie Spence, prosecuting, who revealed details of Casey’s scam in the previous court hearing.

Finding Easy Targets

Spence told the court that a friend of Casey’s had ordered multiple items for himself and other items for other friends and family. One woman sent Casey over £4,500 ($5,456), another used an inheritance from her mother to buy items, and a third lost her money for a purchase of a birthday present for her husband.

According to Kelly Sherif, defending, Casey was unaware that he had scammed so many people as he had to deal with only three individuals personally and later on showed “extreme remorse” for his actions.

Sherif also added that as soon as Casey realized he had developed a gambling addiction having lost the William Hill and EuroMillions money on betting, he moved to self-exclude himself from gambling but Judge Stephen Earl was not impressed and sentenced Casey to a year in prison.