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Imprisoned former Jaguars employee Amit Patel sues gambling site FanDuel for $250 million

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2 months ago

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Imprisoned former Jaguars employee Amit Patel sues gambling site FanDuel for 0 million

A former Jacksonville Jaguars employee imprisoned for embezzling $22 million wasted mostly on gambling filed a $250 million lawsuit Tuesday against FanDuel, saying the online betting site exploited his gambling addiction and sidestepped laws and rules that might have stopped him.

Amit Patel’s lawsuit argues FanDuel employees “knew, or at least suspected and took steps to intentionally ignore,” that Patel was using a corporate credit card to make “frequent massive deposits” with the betting site.

Patel was sentenced in March to six and a half years in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud for cheating the Jaguars out of money to pay for his gambling and expensive lifestyle. In July, the Jaguars sued Patel for $67 million, saying state law entitled them to three times the money that was taken from them.

Deciding who pays: Will FanDuel have to pay back money a Jaguars employee stole? The team is asking for it

The lawsuit seeks damages for Patel’s losses, including “severe emotional distress” he’s experienced.

The New Jersey attorney who filed Patel’s lawsuit, Matthew Litt, said by email that while Patel isn’t blameless, the new suit tries “to apportion responsibility in a way that accounts for FanDuel’s very active involvement in his gambling addiction.”

A FanDuel spokesman said by email that the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The suit says FanDuel assigned Patel a VIP host who was sometimes in touch with him 100 times a day.

The host traveled with him to special events and must have known the former team finance manager worked for the Jaguars and wasn’t allowed under his work’s rules to gamble on the NFL, claims the suit filed in federal court in New York.

The host assigned to Patel reached out if his gambling decreased, the lawsuit claims, and offered perks including trips to the Super Bowl, the NCAA college football championship and a Formula 1 Grand Prix event in Miami to keep him betting ― and losing.

FanDuel’s “relentless enticements … to gamble when they knew he suffered from gambling addiction and/or exhibited the signs of a problem gambler was an unconscionable act” that violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, the lawsuit argues.

The suit says Patel used “stolen money” to cover his gambling expenses, depositing more than $20 million with FanDuel through more than 1,000 transactions involving $25,000 each.

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