A father and son who set up an illegal bookmaker business in their home have been jailed in the first prosecution of its kind in the UK.
James Alston had up to 20 customers every day visiting his home, where he had three TVs tuned into separate racing channels and a gaming machine. He also acquired a bet settler machine for complex bets and kept a ledger to record his customers’ bets.
Alston, 74, who described himself as a professional gambler, earned up to £2,000 a day from his illegal betting business and by offering loans and credit. The prosecution estimated he had made around £100,000 from the business. He was jailed for 18 months while his son, James Alston Jnr, 45, was given a 12-month sentence for running his own money loaning and bookmaking business.
The pair had denied charges of illegal money lending, money laundering and possessing criminal property from the proceeds of acting as an unlicensed bookmaker, but were convicted after a 13-day trial. The UK Gambling Commission said the prosecution, which followed a tip-off from the public, had been the first of its kind.
Alston was arrested after trading standards officials uncovered his unlicensed operation during a raid of his flat in Preston in June 2010. Alston argued that he and his son were only putting bets on for friends and lending money to people they knew and were not making profit out of their activities.
