Betting giant let my husband gamble his way to prison': How chatty emails, banter and cash gifts from a Betway ‘VIP manager’ led addicted father-of-two, 30, to stake £1m as he stole from his employer before being jailed for three years
The email Ben Jones received at 8.40am on September 2, 2016, was friendly. ‘Hi Ben, my name is Simon and I would like to introduce myself as your personal host from now on… Can I ask if you follow any sports or teams in particular?’
Simon Kent, ‘VIP Manager’ at gambling giant Betway, had every reason to sound chummy. He was inviting married father-of-two Jones, 30, to join an exclusive but perilous club: Betway’s biggest losers, where high-spending gamblers are plied with free sports tickets, ‘bonus’ money and ‘special gifts’ to keep them hooked.
The cynical email – just one of many tactics deployed by the online betting giant to entice gamblers – went on: ‘I’m writing to let you know that you have achieved VIP status with us here at Betway... you are entitled to these exclusive benefits: Your own VIP Executive Host... special gifts tailored to your own personal interests and tastes, exclusive VIP events and tickets... I can arrange to take you to some events in the near future!’
By May the following year, Betway was pouring up to £1,000 a week into Jones’s account, a flood of free money that peaked at £3,000-a-go in November 2017, even as the former public schoolboy complained to the company of his ‘worst losing streak ever’.
What Betway did not know was that when Jones signed up, he was already a problem gambler, who claims his habit can be traced back to a 2p horse racing game he played in a seaside arcade on a family holiday to Bridlington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Over the two years that followed his elevation to a Betway ‘VIP’ gambler, Jones bet an astonishing £1.1 million and lost about £280,000. Amid a dizzying deluge of bonuses, free tickets and ‘matey’ exchanges with VIP manager Mr Kent, he used savings, payday loans and ************ to feed his habit.
And when the funds ran dry, he stole hundreds of thousands from his employer to keep betting.
His sophisticated fraud started in May 2015, with the theft of £5,000 a month from his employer, Britain’s biggest cake decorator. But as his gambling addiction deepened, he stole £30,000 a month to fund his Betway account.
In November last year, Jones was finally jailed for three years for the theft, after the court heard he was in the grip of an addiction so severe it was categorised as a ‘psychiatric disorder’.
Now, for the first time, the Mail can reveal the troubling truth about how Betway enabled his habit.
The guy lost his ass and freedom
The email Ben Jones received at 8.40am on September 2, 2016, was friendly. ‘Hi Ben, my name is Simon and I would like to introduce myself as your personal host from now on… Can I ask if you follow any sports or teams in particular?’
Simon Kent, ‘VIP Manager’ at gambling giant Betway, had every reason to sound chummy. He was inviting married father-of-two Jones, 30, to join an exclusive but perilous club: Betway’s biggest losers, where high-spending gamblers are plied with free sports tickets, ‘bonus’ money and ‘special gifts’ to keep them hooked.
The cynical email – just one of many tactics deployed by the online betting giant to entice gamblers – went on: ‘I’m writing to let you know that you have achieved VIP status with us here at Betway... you are entitled to these exclusive benefits: Your own VIP Executive Host... special gifts tailored to your own personal interests and tastes, exclusive VIP events and tickets... I can arrange to take you to some events in the near future!’
By May the following year, Betway was pouring up to £1,000 a week into Jones’s account, a flood of free money that peaked at £3,000-a-go in November 2017, even as the former public schoolboy complained to the company of his ‘worst losing streak ever’.
What Betway did not know was that when Jones signed up, he was already a problem gambler, who claims his habit can be traced back to a 2p horse racing game he played in a seaside arcade on a family holiday to Bridlington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Over the two years that followed his elevation to a Betway ‘VIP’ gambler, Jones bet an astonishing £1.1 million and lost about £280,000. Amid a dizzying deluge of bonuses, free tickets and ‘matey’ exchanges with VIP manager Mr Kent, he used savings, payday loans and ************ to feed his habit.
And when the funds ran dry, he stole hundreds of thousands from his employer to keep betting.
His sophisticated fraud started in May 2015, with the theft of £5,000 a month from his employer, Britain’s biggest cake decorator. But as his gambling addiction deepened, he stole £30,000 a month to fund his Betway account.
In November last year, Jones was finally jailed for three years for the theft, after the court heard he was in the grip of an addiction so severe it was categorised as a ‘psychiatric disorder’.
Now, for the first time, the Mail can reveal the troubling truth about how Betway enabled his habit.
The guy lost his ass and freedom
