You are in:
British courts sentence two casino cheats
One man was jailed and another received a suspended sentence after cheating at British casinos.
Abdullah Toksoz, a Turkish national living in London, was sent to prison for 16 months after pleading guilty to deception, false representation and fraud.
Specialising in Brag, he is believed to have earned up to 3000 Euro ($4850) a night at casinos in London, Liverpool and Manchester by marking cards with a concealed pin.
The total netted by Toksoz remains unknown.
Banned from British casinos more than a decade ago, he used fake Bulgarian, Italian and American IDs to gain access. He will likely be deported after his release.
A spokesperson for the UK Casino Security Management Association was quoted as saying: “He has plied his trade across the globe, and is well known to the International Association of Casino Security. He is banned everywhere.”
Somewhat luckier was 56-year-old Tyrone Pooley, caught by CCTV after playing an electronic roulette game for 15 straight hours at Maxims Casino in Southampton, a Genting venue.
Pooley, with the aid of his wife, had been able to open the machine and manipulate switches inside in order to void games where he had lost.
Pleading guilty to cheating at gaming, he received a 45-week suspended prison sentence and was ordered to perform 200 hours of community work.
Meanwhile, David Carruthers, the former CEO of BetOnSports, has been sentenced to 33 months’ imprisonment by a U.S. court for racketeering conspiracy. The case against him related to BetOnSports taking sports bets from residents of the U.S., both online and over the phone.
Although BetOnSports was based outside the U.S., and Carruthers lived in Costa Rica, he was arrested in transit through Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
Carruther’s sentence “should send a message to any foreign business conducting illegal activities in the United States that geography does not render it untouchable”, said Assistant United States Attorney Steven Holtshouser.
BetOnSports founder Gary Kaplan had earlier received a 51-month sentence on similar charges.
