UK Bank Manager Stole Funds to Gamble Online

July 15, 2010 | News Category: Online Casinos

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One of the tips for online gambling that is found on this site, and on many others across the Internet is that those who are gambling should ensure that they gamble with money that they can afford to lose, and obviously money that is their own.

One United Kingdom bank manager from Oldham, UK did not take this advice, and ended up in a lot of trouble. In fact, Nicole Taylor, age 39 was brought in to work in a bank specially to help resolve certain minor cash discrepancies that needed clearing up at the bank.

She was unable to resolve a genuine shortfall in the books, which she then falsified in order to keep it covered up. In an interview, she said that that is how her dishonesty began. Once she realized how easy it was to take the money, and keep it hidden, she decided to use some of the bank’s funds in order to finance online gambling. It seems that she had had an online gambling problem for some time, but had managed to keep it hidden from her partner and the rest of her family.

The Oldham bank manager stole nearly £245,000, which she used for online gambling. The money was siphoned off the bank’s cash reserves over a time period of 11 months.

Nicole Taylor plead guilty to a number of specific counts of fraud, which only totaled £29,170, however, it seems that there were a number of other offences over the 11 month period, which totaled about another £215,200.

When Recorder Peter Cowan pronounced a jail sentence of two years, he said to Ms. Taylor: "You persistently abused the trust placed in you over a period of some 11 months, and I have been unable to conclude that anything but an immediate custodial sentence is appropriate."

Taylor had been hoping that she would hit an online casino jackpot, and then would be able to repay the money she had stolen, although, perhaps she considered it "borrowed" before anyone would notice that it was missing.

When a number of large amounts were used on debit card transactions to online gambling sites nearly every day, suspicions were aroused, and therefore, an investigation took place. More than 40 payments into a savings account were made over four months, reaching a total of £82,000, and another £27,000 was made into another savings account.

Until this rather shocking incident, Ms. Taylor had been considered a valued member of staff, and had had an excellent record spanning her 10 years of employment at the Co-operative Bank based in Manchester.