Former Jacksonville Jaguars employee pleads guilty to stealing $22 million from team

Amit Patel worked for the Jacksonville Jaguars as a financial manager and analyst between 2019 and 2023 and during that time developed a strategy to defraud the team of over $22 million, according to charges filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Middle District of Florida on Tuesday.

By Thursday, Patel and his attorney Alex King had entered a plea of guilty to charges that hold a maximum of 30 years in prison and up to a $500,000 fine.

According to the filing, Patel was the sole administrator of the virtual credit card (VCC) account for the team in October 2019 and began creating fraudulent charges against the account and utilizing the funds elsewhere. This included a $95,000 watch, a Tesla Model 3, private jets, luxury hotel stays, and a substantial sports gambling debt. Patel’s attorney Alex King recently stated that “approximately 99%” of the misappropriated funds his client stole via this plan were gambling losses.

And these losses became fairly well known, according to an ESPN report. Daily Fantasy sports gamers became so familiar with Patel’s online username, ParlayPicker, that they would seek out games he was participating in because of his high losses. Reportedly entering contests with buy-ins as high as $24,000 and not submitting complete lineups or choosing players not actively playing. King stated his client suffers from a “serious gambling addiction”.

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