The Pounds 8 Billion Dot.Bomb ; (1)a Tiny Group of Online Gambling Entrepreneurs Float Their Companies, Which Then Shoot Into the Top 100 British Businesses. They Cash in Pounds 1.5 Billion of Their Chips and Distance Themselves From Their Own Firms Just As the Us Outlaws Them, Causing a Multibillion-Pound Share Crash. Caroline Graham and Nick Gilbert Report On the Players Who Broke the Bank with a Busted Flush

Mail on Sunday › December 08, 2006

Linked as:

Summary

At precisely the same hour every day, a pathetic scene unfolds in the smart, upmarket foyer of the Clayton On The Park Hotel in St Louis, Missouri.

A shambling Scotsman, sallow-faced and dressed in a tracksuit and T-shirt, emerges from a lift, shuffles past the giant aquarium that dominates the lobby and makes a beeline for the revolving exit door.

See the full content of this document

Extract

The Pounds 8 Billion Dot.Bomb ; (1)a Tiny Group of Online Gambling Entrepreneurs Float Their Companies, Which Then Shoot Into the Top 100 British Businesses. They Cash in Pounds 1.5 Billion of Their Chips and Distance Themselves From Their Own Firms Just As the Us Outlaws Them, Causing a Multibillion-Pound Share Crash. Caroline Graham and Nick Gilbert Report On the Players Who Broke the Bank with a Busted Flush

He doesn't glance up at the hotel lobby staff he is embarrassed both by his incongruous appearance and the electronic shackle fastened securely around his ankle, which marks him out as a criminal. They, equally embarrassed, do the decent thing and studiously ignore him.

Both he and they know that he will be back within the hour; if he is not, he will have violated his bail and risks being slung back in jail.

'He rarely smiles and doesn't say much,' says a hotel worker. 'He seems a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Everyone here knows who he is and the fact that he is facing the rest of his life behind bars.' Five months ago, David Carruthers headed one of the hottest companies on the London Stock Exchange.

As chief executive of BetonSports, the former Ladbrokes manager had become used to the high life, and revelled in his new-found status and wealth. He wore Savile Row suits and spent his life on a private jet commuting between Britain, America and his fabul...

See the full content of this document