“Hours were spent trawling through paperwork in different names, receipts for luxury items, bank books, and 177 sim cards that were seized from the address. Substantial sums of money were involved,\u201d said detective sergeant Mike Monkton in a statement.<\/p>\n
\nBetting online in someone else\u2019s name is against the terms of use,”<\/strong> he added. \u201cThe whole enterprise was dishonest and designed to deceive the gambling company.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe court heard that people would willingly give the syndicate their personal information, allowing members to sign up and create accounts.<\/p>\n
On Friday, at the same court, Howard\u2019s codefendant, Daniel Gorman, 45, was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment for fraud, with 12 months suspended. He was also cleared of money laundering.<\/p>\n
Rise in Bonus Abuse<\/strong><\/h2>\nKnown in the online gaming industry as \u201cbonus abuse,\u201d the syndicate\u2019s modus operandi is nothing new. As long as online casinos have offered promotions like sign-up bonuses, loyalty awards, and free bets to attract customers, those have sought to exploit them. Detection is rare, and prosecution is almost unheard of.<\/p>\n
Bonus abuse is estimated to cost the online gambling industry up to 15% of its gross revenue, according to About-Fraud.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nA study published last year by payments fraud specialist Ravelin found that 71% of online gambling operators reported an increase in the problem over the previous year.<\/p>\n
\u201cGambling websites often have high transaction volume, with players making a lot of payments regularly, which can make it difficult to detect fraudsters … or even catch individual fraudulent purchase,\u201d said Martin Sweeney, CEO at Ravelin, in a statement that accompanied the study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A British man who opened more than 1,000 Bet365 accounts so he could claim the bonuses has been sent to prison for five years. Jon Howard, 40, of Essex, made a profit of around \u00a3236,000 (US$295,000) from the accounts he opened using other people\u2019s identities. Last Thursday, he was convicted of defrauding Bet365 and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":270268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,19],"tags":[82599,85983],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Bet365 Bonus Fraudster Opened 1K Accounts, Gets Five Years<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n