Con man lost at blackjack
Con man blackjack

After allegedly scamming tens of thousands of people out of their rightfully earned money, a man from Utah went on to gamble away millions in Las Vegas.

An alleged professional con man from Utah, linked to a $275M scam, according to sources close to investigation, has lost millions of dollars at blackjack card games in Las Vegas and playing online high stakes poker at Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. Jeremy Johnson’s gambling spree came after he was ordered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to freeze his funds as he was a target in an ongoing fraud investigation.

The reason behind the investigation was an alleged scam devised by Johnson through his companies Elite Debit and I-Works, which helped him gain at least $275M by charging client’s credit cards for non-existing services. Johnson, naturally denies all charges. Kent Dawson, U.S. District Judge, issued an order to freeze all of Johnson’s accounts till the matter is resolved in court.

Yet, once the court appointed accountants combed through Johnson’s assets, they found his accounts diminished by almost $60M. Further investigation found that Jeremy was a high limit blackjack player at several famous Las Vegas establishments, as well as a regular online player. Since he failed to win any money, we can only conclude his inability to utilize basic card counting system to be the primary cause of such a large deficit, or perhaps the money is stashed away in a numbered Swiss Bank Account.

“I gambled with money that I earned from my companies and since I no longer have any of that, it’s been a really good cure for me, my addiction,” Johnson said. “Sometimes I’d win a lot of money and then I’d think in my mind – I am lucky, nothing can beat me now; and it didn’t work. I like gambling. I often told the dealer to hit on 19 with $100,000 on the hand, because i just felt the next card was a 2.”

Now apart from suffering considerable losses from gambling, Johnson faces sever multi-million dollar class-action civil lawsuits as well as a possible 25-50 year prison term if the case goes to trial.