Bookie stole €590,000 and gambled most of it

A former manager of Boylesports bookmakers at Castle St in Cork stole almost €600,000 from the shop and gambled most of it through Paddy Power’s website.

Detective Garda Padraig Harrington yesterday said Paddy Power became so concerned about the extent of the gambling by Ronan Crowley, aged 33, of Carrig Downs, Carrigtwohill, that it investigated it internally and refused to take any more bets from him.

The detective said Paddy Power did not notify management at Boylesports of the matter.

The 236 separate thefts, where Crowley failed to lodge shop cash receipts into the company’s main account any day on which he was working over a 22-month period, were eventually discovered by his employers, but not before he had stolen €590,810.

The chances of the gambling addict repaying any money was described by the detective as zero. He gambled every day, blowing €398,000 with Paddy Power online.

Det Garda Harrington said that because of the scale of gambling by an individual, they are required to investigate the source of the money.

When Paddy Power contacted him, it was told by Crowley that he had inherited the cash.

“They (Paddy Power) failed to notify Boylesports. They knew he was a manger at Boylesports,” the detective said.

James Duggan, defending, said that if the matter had been detected earlier, Crowley would have had some chance of dealing with it.

He said that like a lot of gamblers, his hope was that he would have a big win, drive to Drogheda to pay it all back, and then resign from the job.

Instead the offence was detected, the gardaí called to him, and he subsequently co-operated with the investigation.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin imposed a five-year jail sentence on Crowley, but suspended it in its entirety.

The judge said: “This is a truly extraordinary case. In excess of half a million euro was stolen from Boylesports over almost two years, a significant breach of trust.

“It beggars belief that a company like Boylesports are so disorganised in their set-up they did not know this was going on for almost two years — a man entrusted to make lodgements was not making the lodgements.

“One would expect this would be picked up overnight or within a week in a properly-run business.

“Paddy Power knew or suspected there was something wrong and had the accused as a monitored customer and seemed to be slow in either reporting it or detecting it. Again that is quite extraordinary.”

The charges state that Crowley stole varying sums from Boylesports, Castle St, on dates between November 19, 2011, and September 2 2013.