A former financial planner who stole $3.3 million from his clients to fund his sports betting addiction has written to the prime minister from his prison cell, urging him to adopt the recommendations made by a parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harm.
Gavin Fineff is serving a maximum sentence of nine years in jail.
He says three sports betting agencies, Ladbrokes, Tabcorp and BetEasy, not only exploited his addiction, but allowed him to lose millions without properly checking his income, and then kept the proceeds of his crimes after he was prosecuted.
In his letter, obtained by ABC Investigations, the 45-year-old father of two has called on the government to “tackle gambling addiction properly” and do more to regulate an industry that he considers predatory.
“The gambling companies know they are cultivating and exploiting addictions like the one I had. It’s part of their unspoken business model,” he writes in his letter, which he also plans to send to all parliamentarians.
“This has to stop before even more innocent people are harmed.”
Over a year ago, a House of Representatives committee chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy handed down its final report on online gambling following a lengthy inquiry.
Among the report’s 31 recommendations were a phased-in ban on gambling advertising, more stringent identity checks on gamblers, a ban on online gambling inducements, and the introduction of a national online gambling regulator.
When the committee published its report, You Win Some, You Lose More, Ms Murphy said it was time to treat gambling harm as a public health issue.
“Australians are the biggest losers in the world when it comes to gambling. We have a culture where sport and gambling are intrinsically linked,” she said.
“These behaviours are causing increasingly widespread and serious harm to individuals, families, and communities.”
Ms Murphy died in December last year from cancer. The prime minister praised her as someone who “led the charge on new reforms to minimise the harm caused by online gambling” through the cross-party committee.
But despite these proposals being seen as a key part of her political legacy, the Albanese government has yet to pass legislation based on the report’s findings.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said the government had been too slow to act.
“Peta was a highly regarded, much-loved member of the parliament and the work Peta did leading this inquiry into online gambling was absolutely first-rate work.
“I think it does dishonour Peta not to act on those recommendations.
“I do think it dishonours Peta that the government has sat on those recommendations for more than a year.”
In a statement, the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said the government was “firmly committed to minimising harms from online wagering”.
“The government is engaging with stakeholders, including harm reduction advocates, health experts and industry, as we develop further reforms.
“The status quo of online wagering advertising is untenable and the government will announce a comprehensive response to the parliamentary inquiry shortly.”
Fineff, who made a submission to the inquiry, says it’s time the prime minister acted.
“The committee’s inquiries were extensive and the evidence it uncovered was explosive. At the core of their recommendations was that public health must be prioritised over profits for gambling companies,” he says in his letter from prison.
“Online gambling has rapidly fuelled gambling addiction in Australia with fast bets, fast losses and fast cash transfers.
“The committee made a number of evidence-based recommendations that would reverse the current situation. I implore you to accept and legislate for every recommendation.”
Mr Wilkie is helping to distribute Fineff’s letter through his office. He has praised him for continuing to agitate for reform from behind bars.
“Gavin acknowledges the harm he has done to his victims, that is clear,” he said.
“But there is no doubt in my mind that he is determined to use his circumstances to highlight the problem of gambling addiction, and to advocate for solutions.
“The recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry should be implemented in full. The committee has done the work. They know the facts, and now the government must act.”
Gambling addict ‘traded like property’
ABC Investigations first met Gavin Fineff over four years ago, before he was charged and prosecuted for stealing from 12 of his clients.
At the time, he admitted he had been gambling with other people’s money and spoke to the ABC to shine a light on what he saw as the exploitative practices of the sports betting industry.
What was unique about Fineff’s case was that three different betting agencies had targeted him through their VIP programs, and he was willing to disclose in detail the tactics and techniques used to keep him gambling — even when he had been blocked by other agencies.
“I was offered all sorts of things, events and experiences, and bonus money to bet with. They had reward systems for more deposits,” Fineff said.
In the world of sports betting, ‘VIP customers’ are incentivised to keep losing. The more they lose, the more lucrative they become to the betting agencies.
To keep them gambling, the VIPs are made to feel special.
They are taken to sporting events and given “bonus bets”.
VIP managers are paid a commission on their clients’ net losses — some as high as 20 per cent — making it in their financial interest to turn a blind eye to excessive losses.
The inquiry recommended that commissions be prohibited.
Fineff first became a VIP customer with TAB. In one six-month period he lost $1.5 million with the agency, at a time when he was on an annual income of around $130,000.
Betting agencies are required under law to comply with “know your customer” provisions – that means properly verifying identification and reporting on any suspicious transactions.
Fineff says proper checks on his ability to fund such astronomical losses were not conducted during that period.
“At the time, I was never asked anything about my activity, or if it might be harmful or how I was funding that,” he says.
By the time Tabcorp eventually asked the financial planner what his annual income was, he had lost $3.9 million.
When he did not provide an answer, his account was frozen.
That should have been the end of Fineff’s destructive period of sports betting, but a few weeks later, when he was waiting for a train, an unknown caller popped up on his phone.
It was an employee from another sports betting agency, Ladbrokes.
He says he told the VIP agent there that his account at TAB had been frozen.
“He said that wouldn’t be a problem at all and went on to say that he could set up the account for me. He set up the account in a different name, and without me providing identification,” he said.
Over the next 20 months, Fineff says he lost around $750,000 under a Ladbrokes account set up with a false name without being asked for identification or proof of income.
Eventually, Ladbrokes was fined $78,540 for breaches of the industry code in relation to Fineff’s account, however, the agency was allowed to keep the $750,000 he had lost because the NT regulator did not find the bets were unlawful, despite coming from stolen funds.
A few months after Fineff was contacted by Ladbrokes, a third betting agency cold-called him.
An employee from BetEasy rang Fineff and helped him set up another account.
He says that initially he was not asked for identification or proof of income and that over the next 16 months he lost approximately $3.6 million with BetEasy.
“In the first three months they gave me $1 million of bonus money to bet with. I lost the same amount. They were basically matching all my deposits and just giving me whatever I wanted,” he says.
The parliamentary committee recommended that these kinds of bonus bets and other inducements be outlawed.
Industry experts have told the ABC they believe Fineff was targeted because it was known he was a problem gambler, and that his contact details were deliberately passed between employees from different betting agencies.
Lauren Levin from Financial Counselling Australia said he was “traded like property” by the betting agencies, describing the way he had been treated as “absolutely reprehensible”.
In his letter, Fineff describes the lack of legal responsibility currently placed on gambling companies as “embarrassing”.
“In one absurd aspect of my experience, three gambling companies are holding millions of dollars of proceeds of crime and still refusing to return it to victims,” he wrote.
“If someone steals your wallet and gives that wallet to someone else, the police will take that wallet and return it to you. Money stolen and given to gambling companies should be treated no differently.”
ABC Investigations contacted the three betting agencies involved in Fineff’s case and asked whether they intended to return any of the money to his victims. All declined to comment. The industry’s peak body Responsible Wagering Australia also declined to comment.
The inquiry recommended that any new form of national regulation “include provisions to prevent the proceeds of crime from being used to fund online gambling”.
In other countries like the UK, betting agencies can be forced to pay back any proceeds of crime.
While the Albanese government has not acted on proceeds of crime in relation to gambling, Ms Rowland said they had made other reforms such as introducing the National Self-Exclusion Register and banning the use of credit cards for online wagering.
‘This has become my life’s work’
Judge Christopher O’Brien stressed the importance of deterrence last year in sentencing Fineff to nine years’ jail for defrauding 12 of his clients of amounts ranging from $60,000 to $745,000.
He noted that Fineff had established personal bonds with many of his victims – becoming close friends with them and their families.
“His victims let him into their lives. He seriously abused their generosity, hospitality and trust,” he said.
Six of Fineff’s defrauded clients were in their 60s and 70s – people who were relying on their finances for retirement.
Fineff told the ABC four years ago that he felt incredible remorse for what he had done.
“I feel it when I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is make amends and I hope … that I get the opportunity to do that.”
He believes he has taken responsibility for his crimes, and in his letter to the prime minister and other parliamentarians admitted that he gambled away millions of other people’s money.
“A gambling addiction can’t be used as an excuse for harming others,” Fineff wrote.
In his letter he claimed that a high proportion of gambling addicts ended up committing crimes to fund their habits.
“Consequently, people continue to be harmed. That’s why I believe we need to tackle gambling addiction properly in this country, and this has become my life’s work,” he said.
Andrew Wilkie has previously tried to introduce legislation that would see stolen funds that have been gambled away returned to the victims of the theft.
He says he hopes Fineff’s intervention will give prominence to the issue and that the government will act before the next election.
“I think Gavin should get some credit for working from behind bars to right wrongs,” he said.
“Real justice for Gavin’s victims would see the three gambling companies returning the stolen money to them.
“I hope the prime minister reads Gavin’s letter and that the government adopts all of the committee’s recommendations immediately.”