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SportsTranscript
00:00All right, so here we go here.
00:05We knew about this story, I believe it was earlier this year, last year, there was an
00:09employee of the Jacksonville Jaguars who appears to be addicted to gambling, stealing a lot
00:15of money, allegedly, from the Jacksonville Jaguars, had a sentencing involved, reparations
00:20involved, where he basically was just taking funds from the Jags who make a fortune and
00:26using it to bet on sports.
00:28And now the same employee is suing the sports book, essentially, correct me if I'm wrong,
00:35for saying you guys should have stopped me from betting.
00:43Tell me where I'm wrong here about this and how in the world this is legitimate.
00:46Yeah, Craig, it really is a crazy story that we heard from first last year and doesn't
00:52seem to be going away.
00:54It's actually even more nuanced than that, though, because this is all around daily fantasy
00:58sports, not technically sports betting.
01:01And we'll get into that a little bit later, how that kind of creates an even more confusing
01:05case and adds even more ambiguity about who is right and who is wrong here.
01:10But you have Amit Patel, the former Jacksonville Jaguars employee who pled guilty last year
01:15to stealing more than twenty two million dollars from the team and then using that money to
01:20fund his daily fantasy sports play and also a lavish lifestyle, which included private
01:26jets and golf memorabilia from eBay.
01:29He's now suing Vandal, saying that they purposely ignored signs of problem gambling and allegedly
01:36coerced him to spending more and more to the point where he would have to hit rock bottom
01:41and accusing the company of ignoring anti money laundering protocols, essentially trying
01:46to get him to do this and pushing him to this place.
01:49He's currently serving six and a half years in federal prison in South Carolina for admitting
01:54to embezzling all that money.
01:56He also could.
01:57Oh, I think this is important to note.
01:59Eighty eight million dollars to the Jaguars, depending on the outcome of another civil
02:04case.
02:05He was already ordered to pay about 20 million dollars, which he probably does not have.
02:09And the Jaguars are also suing him in southern Florida for that extra 60 million dollars
02:14in change.
02:15He's seeking 250 million dollars here from Vandal, filed this lawsuit in the Southern
02:20District of New York on Tuesday, alleging that Vandal used things like VIP perks, a
02:26million dollars in credits to keep playing daily fantasy sports trips, the Super Bowl
02:30to all keep him hooked.
02:32It also names a former Vandal VIP host who actually now works at Fanatics.
02:36He says this guy targeted him and allegedly exasperated, exacerbated his addiction to
02:42the point where he would be texting him 100 times per day off of Vandal's platform, allegedly
02:47even acknowledging that he was breaking anti-money laundering protocols.
02:50So I think the really important thing here to note is the bulk of this activity was all
02:55daily fantasy sports, which in Florida, that was the only option you had at the time.
03:01This was before Hard Rock launched Vandal doesn't offer sports betting in Florida.
03:05So that wouldn't have been able to happen anyway.
03:08And while DFS has a lot of similarities to sports betting and in some cases outright
03:12elements that mirror gambling legally, it's treated very differently and very differently
03:17depending on the state.
03:19We have states rights to thank for that and the unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006,
03:24which created this whole kind of mess of is it fancy sports?
03:27Is it gambling?
03:28So he's saying that Vandal allowed this to continue and only notified the Jaguars once
03:33he owed all this money.
03:35But according to NFL rules, you can only really notify someone of something happening once
03:41they're placing the sports bet because working as an employee for a NFL organization and
03:47betting on sports is illegal.
03:49Daily fantasy sports, not technically sports betting, it's treated a little differently.
03:53So what I've heard from people close to the situation is once he actually tried to place
03:57a sports bet in a state that had sports betting on Vandal's platform, that was flagged to
04:02the team, which then triggered this investigation.
04:04And then fast forward months later, he's in jail.
04:06He owes millions of dollars.
04:08This whole thing has kind of unfolded.
04:10So to me, this kind of seems like a big swing from Patel and his lawyers to try to recoup
04:15some of that money that he allegedly owes.
04:17They've talked about his gambling addiction in the past, sort of saying that, you know,
04:21we acknowledge that he did a wrong thing here, but also he suffers from this addiction.
04:25So I would expect Vandal to fight this as hard as they can, especially considering that
04:31probably in their minds, they feel like they did the right thing and flagged this to the
04:34team under the rules.
04:36It's much, much harder to track people who are playing fantasy sports.
04:40But this case is, you know, one that won't go away.
04:42I'm sure this is not the last we hear on this lawsuit and the other lawsuits that are pending.