Christopher Collins pleads guilty to scamming Melbourne women on dating apps of $85k to spend on gambing habit

A SCHEMING gambling addict who pretended to work for a betting agency has pleaded guilty to conning more than $85,000 from vulnerable women across Melbourne that he met on dating apps.

A SCHEMING gambling addict conned more than $85,000 from vulnerable women he met on dating apps.

Christopher Collins, 28, tricked women into giving him tens of thousands of dollars, which he then spent on failed bets.

Collins charmed the women into putting huge sums of money into his TAB account, telling one victim he was a sports analyst for CrownBet.

The father of one, believed to have defrauded the women of about $85,000, pleaded guilty on March 8 in the Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court to 11 charges, including scamming women and using their stolen TAB vouchers in Sunbury, Point Cook, Armstrong Creek, Melbourne, Chirnside Park, Caulfield and Cheltenham.

Christopher Collins has pleaded guilty to duping women out of money to spend on his gambling addiction. Picture: File picture

In April 2016, Collins told a woman he met online that he worked as a sports analyst and could “guarantee her money though a foolproof system”.

He convinced the woman to place $33,000 into an online gambling account but he lost the bet.

Collins told her she could get the money back but would need to put more money into the account.

In October 2017, Collins met a woman on the dating app Bumble and convinced her to let him place a $20,000 bet on her behalf.

He went to a TAB to place a bet on NBA player Jimmy Butler but betting had closed so he switched to a “total score” bet, which the woman had not agreed to, and lost.

Collins has also pleaded guilty to cutting up to $800 worth of his ex-girlfriend’s clothes at her Parkdale home and bombarding her with 140 calls and 23 text messages.

Collins pleaded guilty in the Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court.

Collin’s defence lawyer said it was his client’s first time in custody and said he had a diagnosed gambling addiction.

Magistrate Anne Goldsbrough said Collins’ treatment of the women was “highly manipulative and controlling” and went to the issue of family violence.

She said Collins had failed to complete a men’s behaviour change program in the past but said she was not opposed to a community corrections order.

“This is a startling amount of money and also a startling series of behaviours,” Ms Goldsbrough said.

Collins was returned to prison where he has spent almost two months and will come back to court on April 16.