Imprisoned Ex-Jaguars Employee Sues FanDuel for $250 Million

The former Jaguars employee who stole $22 million from the club and pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud charges has sued FanDuel over claims the company “preyed” on his gambling addiction. 

In the lawsuit filed in a New York federal court Tuesday, Amit Patel seeks $250 million in damages over allegations of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Between 2019 and 2023, Patel transferred about $20 million to FanDuel, where he used the funds to play daily fantasy and he also used funds stolen from the Jags’ virtual credit card program to purchase a Tesla, a condo, and trips on private jets. 

The suit says that throughout the entire period Patel was stealing and gambling, he was an “addicted gambler” and that FanDuel was aware of his addiction through “the data it actively collected and monitored on his massive deposits, amounts bet, and frequency of bets.”

Patel’s lawsuit states FanDuel is a “financial institution” that has to comply with many of the same regulations as banks when it comes to policing money laundering, mail fraud, and other types of illicit activity. 

“Part of [FanDuel’s] predatory gambling practice was intentionally ignoring its own responsible gaming protocol, and knowing and/or taking intentional steps to avoid knowing that

the money gambled by [Patel] was stolen or otherwise not from a legitimate source,” Matthew R. Litt, Patel’s lawyer, wrote in the civil complaint. “[The] defendants circumvented its own Know Your Customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), and customer due diligence (CDD) standards and requirements—again to ensure that [Patel] continue depositing and gambling in massive amounts and frequencies.”

After Patel’s guilty plea, he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in March. Patel, 31, is currently serving his prison term at a federal facility in South Carolina and is scheduled to be released in November 2029.

Beyond FanDuel, its parent company Flutter, Fox Corp., and Boyd Gaming are listed as defendants in the lawsuit. ESPN first reported on the existence of the suit. 

A FanDuel spokesperson declined to provide a comment on the lawsuit, citing company policy on pending litigation. 

Patel was designated a VIP—a typical move by betting/daily fantasy companies that seeks to keep high-value bettors from wagering elsewhere—in 2021, according to the lawsuit. Brett Krause, the FanDuel VIP host assigned to Patel, is accused of  “a quasi-personal relationship with gamblers” that allowed “Krause to manipulate” Patel, the complaint stated. 

“[Patel] and Krause often communicated as much as 100 times every day between late 2021 and early 2023,” the lawsuit reads. “On several occasions, [the] defendants contacted [Patel] through Krause on a day he was not gambling to find out why he was not gambling.”

The Jaguars filed a lawsuit against Patel earlier this year that seeks $66.6 million in damages.