Director Jailed After Busting His Business by Stealing and Losing $1 million

A 60 year old businessman from Australia is starting a three year jail sentence after he fell foul of a gambling addiction which led him to make some really bad decisions, stealing over $1 million from his own business, which eventually led to that business declaring itself insolvent. Garry Leonard Matthews was given a three year sentence, but will be released on a bond after 12 months if he behaves himself.

Matthews was paid a generous directors salary of $186,000 per annum but made various additional withdrawals from his Victorian-based Carrington Carpet Services business to fund his increasingly damaging and reckless betting habit, frittering away $1.08 million over a two year period between June 2010 and August 2012. The withdrawals were classed as theft as they were for his personal use.

Matthews reportedly began gambling in his teens and had a particular fondness for betting on horses and gambling on pokie machines, which are hugely popular in Australia. Matthews was “targeted”, according to the County Court Judge Irene Lawson, by the Crown Casino, who recognised his long-term betting habits as Matthews had been a regular there since it opened in the 1990’s, with the casino becoming central to his social life.

The casino noted his “high-end” gambling habits and made him a VIP as well as offering various incentives for him to continue gambling. This led to Matthews making the cash withdrawals from the carpet business, leading eventually to his arrest and some years on, his imprisonment. Matthews could have faced a longer term of five years in jail but was given a degree of leniency due to him entering a guilty plea as well as admitting he has a gambling problem. He has since began a programme of counselling to address it.

Judge Lawson accepted gambling was a factor but said this did not excuse what he had done. The judge decided that Matthews had to be punished for breaking the law in acting dishonestly as a company director. This crime was severe enough that a jail sentence could not be avoided. Judge Lawson said that Matthews knew what he was doing was wrong and should have resolved earlier to do the right thing, long before he became financially destitute and the viability of the carpet business was ruined.

Poker is a great game but like alcohol, food, sex, computer games and just about anything else we can become obsessed over with can become a problem if not managed correctly. It is always sad when someone makes mistakes but it serves as a warning to all of us to manage both triumph and disaster and as the famous poem says:

"Treat those imposters just the same!”