A bookies worker has been jailed over a Back To The Future-style gambling scam that netted him more than £40,000.
Gavin Thomson found a glitch in Coral’s computer system that let him place bets after events had finished. He gave friends and punters cash to go into Coral branches in Dundee and Forfar to put on coupons on sporting events he knew the results to.
He was jailed for a year after admitting the £40,300 fraud.
Depute fiscal Saima Rasheed told Dundee Sheriff Court Thomson had been a manager’s assistant at the Forfar and Dundee Coral branches.
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She said: “In the summer of 2015 the accused learned that a glitch in the system enabled him to allow late bets placed by customers. He began to ask customers and friends to place bets in the Dundee and Forfar stores on his behalf and he would provide them with stake money.”
Thomson, 27, of Viewmount, Forfar, pleaded guilty on indictment to two charges of fraud committed between October 2015 and January 2016. Defence agent Sarah Russo said the father-of-one “was in a state of desperation and remembered about the glitch in the system and things escalated from there”.
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael said: “The sum involved and the breach of trust mean I’ve come to the conclusion there’s no option other than custody.”
In Back To The Future 2, a character goes back in time and tries to use a book listing sports results to help his younger self make money gambling.
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