Sang Ill Lee: Castle Hill man sentenced over gambling platform PlayUp fraud

A man who swindled more than $100,000 from an online sports betting platform in the space of a month has been sentenced. See how he did it.

A Castle Hill man who swindled more than $100,000 from an online sports betting platform has narrowly avoided prison.

Sang Ill Lee, 29, fronted Hornsby Local Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to one count of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage.

Documents tendered to court lay out how the 29-year-old, who had already received an intensive corrections order (ICO) for a similar offence involving the gambling platform Palmer Bet, managed to swindle $108,000 from sports betting platform PlayUp.

Between May 15 and June 12, Lee would deposit money — sometimes up to $30,000 — into PlayUp twelve times using POLi Payments, court documents state.

Only three of those payments were received by PlayUp, even though Lee still managed to place bets on the platform when the deposited funds were never received.

Sang Ill Lee vapes outside Hornsby Local Court.

But Lee’s scheme soon unravelled when PlayUp contacted the NAB fraud team, a court heard.

“(The) NAB fraud team was able to advise PlayUp that (Lee) was exploiting a weakness in the POLi payment processing system that was allowing him to cancel the transactions before the funds could be credited,” court documents state.

For his offence, Lee received an 18-month ICO.

“(The POLi processing system) allows funds to be available instantly to be used by the client to place wagers … (but if) an individual was to cancel the transactions … wagers could still be placed before the funds are received by PlayUp.”

On August 9 2021, Lee was arrested and taken into custody where he made “frank and full admissions”, a court heard.

“(Lee) stated he owed just under $3 million to a variety of friends, family and loansharks and lives in constant worry in relation to the debts hanging over his head,” court documents state.

“(He) told police an acquaintance had informed him of the vulnerability in the payment processing platform.”

He also told police he had swindled two other betting sites — separate from Palmer Bet and PlayUp — but had contacted them about repaying those debts, a court heard.

In court, Lee’s defence lawyer Derek Drewett said his client was the father of a one-year-old child and had a significant amount of debt — almost $3 million — hanging over his head.

The court also heard the 29-year-old had taken steps to address his gambling addiction.

Magistrate Alexander Mijovich convicted Lee and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment to be served in the community by means of an 18-month intensive corrections order.

Lee was also ordered to perform 200 hours of community service work, abstain from all forms of gambling and pay $108,000 to PlayUp.