Over the past few days we have brought our readers many stories about how gamblers are stealing from their employers to fund their online gambling habits. Sometimes, players become so addicted to their favorite games they will do whatever it takes to fund their habit. Now, yet another online bingo player has stolen from their employer to be able to continue to play online bingo games.

Caroline Shopland-Saich of Devon played online bingo regularly at Foxy Bingo and once she ran out of money she began using a company credit card to pay off her bingo debts. Caroline owed £22,620 in online bingo losses so she used the card to pay off this debt.

Caroline was working as the head of marketing at Applegate Media and she was supposed to use the card to purchase vouchers to reward those who do well in sales. However she used the card for her own means.

Caroline was caught and now has admitted to fraud and was sentenced to twelve months in jail. She was suspended for two years and was ordered to complete two hundred hours of unpaid work.
In court, the defendant admitted that she has used the card to pay off the debt she has accrued over a twenty one month period. The eventually went to the local police department to confess.

Judge John Neligan presided over the case and he commented on the incident by stating: “This started in a small way and I accept it spiraled out of control.” Caroline’s attorney commented that his client was under ‘enormous stress’ and that she began using online gambling and became addicted.


- 2012-01-20