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Web gambler stole to repay £26,000 loss
Published: 2005-12-31
 · Couple threw away money on online poker tables
· Fears that easy access is plunging more into debt
Steven Morris
Saturday December 31, 2005
The Guardian
A clerk at a bureau de change was jailed yesterday for stealing more than £26,000 in just four weeks to meet debts she and her boyfriend ran up by gambling on the internet. Cindy Streets fiddled computer records to try to hide the theft.
She and her boyfriend, Paul Hocking, described at Exeter crown court as a gambling addict, spent hours placing increasingly large amounts of money on online poker tables and betting exchanges, hoping in vain to recoup the losses. But after a month her bosses at Lets Go Travel noticed that £2,000 in foreign currency was missing and her scam was uncovered.
Streets, 21, of Exeter, who admitted three offences of false accounting and asked for the theft of £26,218.08 to be taken into consideration, was jailed for 12 months. Judge Graham Cottle told her: "This was an enormous breach of trust. You were doubtless hoping you would win enough to pay off your debts and reimburse your employers. In the real world it does not happen.
"There was some attempt made to cover up your dishonesty but it only brought temporary relief. I find the particular use to which the money was put is an aggravating feature of this case."
Streets ran the bureau de change at the Exeter branch of Lets Go Travel, a south-west-based travel agency which numbers the television presenter Phillip Schofield among its non-executive directors.
She started off by putting £1,000 in sterling into her handbag when her gambling debts went over the limit of her credit card. Over the weeks Streets, who earned £14,000 a year, took more and more in sterling and foreign currency.
In a police interview which was read out in court she said: "I made a stupid mistake and borrowed £1,000 from work to try to win back money. I lost the £1,000 and then the second lot I took was £6,000 worth of currency.
"I tried to use that to pay back the £1,000 plus my credit card but I got more and more into debt with online gambling. We did win £5,000 back at one stage but we wanted to carry on gambling to win back the full amount and then we lost the winnings."
Stephen Nunn, defending, said Streets's problems arose because her boyfriend was unemployed and a gambling addict. "Her boyfriend told her he would get lucky and that with the next wedge of money they would win but it did not happen. It all happened over a short period of time and escalated beyond any expectations."
Mr Nunn said she had five credit cards, which her boyfriend used to gamble with. "Her misplaced loyalty and immaturity resulted in her getting into debt and then supporting her boyfriend in a desperate attempt to get out of it."
There is increasing concern that internet gambling is plunging more people into debt. The charity GamCare, which advises people with gambling problems, said it had seen an increase in the number of people contacting its helpline after losing control of their online gambling.
Certain aspects of virtual betting, such as the ability to do it 24 hours a day in the home and a tendency by some players to forget they are playing with real cash, can make it a particularly hazardous form of gambling.
Charities are reporting that they regularly come across people who have found themselves owing many thousands of pounds. The problem may intensify as more gambling sites are set up. GamCare estimates there are 1,700 gambling websites, and it is also easy to bet via interactive television and mobile phones.
Online gaming has become a huge business. Sites such as PartyPoker.com, which bills itself as the world's biggest poker room, make millions of pounds by hosting games across the globe.
The site's parent company, PartyGaming, which floated on the London Stock Exchange earlier this year, says that at peak times 80,000 people are playing on PartyPoker. Last year it hosted more than a billion hands.
Other casino games such as roulette are also offered and PartyGaming has suggested that the next big thing after the explosion in virtual poker could be online blackjack.
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Charitable gambling group says smoking ban hurts
Published: 2005-12-30
 Associated PressMINOT, N.D. - The North Dakota Association for the Disabled says its charitable gambling proceeds have been cut in half and it has been forced to eliminate 10 staff positions since a statewide smoking ban took effect in August.
The association's president, Ron Gibbens of Grand Forks, said the organization had to cut $500,000 from its programming budget. Much of its gambling income comes from bingo, and the smoking ban includes bingo halls.
The association is looking at options to present to the 2007 Legislature to ease the effect of the law, Gibbens said. One possibility would be an exemption or reduction in state taxes on gambling in smoke-free environments, he said.
The association saw an immediate drop in the number of bingo players after Aug. 1, Gibbens said, and a further drop during the winter.
"Our problem is about 80 percent of our gaming income has been from these two bingo halls in Grand Forks and Minot. We also have one in Williston one day a week. The Williston one is not as bad. There's a little drop but not as significant," he said.
Gibbens said the drop in charitable gambling means the association cannot help as many clients as it did earlier. In the past when other agencies were not able to help, the association would step in.
Smoking bans have closed down many bingo halls across the country, Gibbens said.
Given that scenario, he said, "Just to be making it is encouraging."
The association's Bingorama in Minot particularly is doing well enough that it pays to keep it open, Gibbens said.
Outside of the bingo halls, the association's gambling revenue has held stable, Gibbens said.
Gross proceeds from charitable gambling statewide totaled $268 million for the fiscal year ending last June, according to the State Gaming Division in the Attorney General's office. That's down slightly from 2004, but proceeds generally have fluctuated little during the past few years.
Jim Foltz, gambling manager for Minot Junior Golf Association and Minot State University Beaver Boosters, sees a slow downward trend in gambling revenue.
Some of the decline in certain games, such as pull tabs, relates to changing demographics because newer, younger players have different interests, he said. Blackjack and poker saw peak activity levels in 2005, gambling records show.
So far this fiscal year, 347 organizations have obtained licenses to hold some type of charitable gambling, the Gaming Division reports.
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