Ex-advisor jailed for stealing $4.5M from clients to fuel gambling spree

Trust shattered, lives ruined. How a financial advisor's gambling addiction turned client savings into a $4.5M fraud nightmare. The system failed them.

, and Administrator

2026 April 7 . 2:06 AM

1 min read

The image shows an old document with a black and white image of a man's handwriting on it, along... — The image shows an old document with a black and white image of a man's handwriting on it, along with text and a stamp. At the bottom of the image, there are color scales, indicating that this is a reward of five emirates to be paid on conviction to whoever shall discover any persons selling a spurious sort of mardant's drops & counterfeiting my name.

Ex-advisor jailed for stealing $4.5M from clients to fuel gambling spree

Anthony Del Vecchio, a former financial advisor from Melbourne, has been jailed for seven and a half years after stealing nearly $4.5 million from clients. The money was gambled away across 52 online bookmakers, with one agency alone receiving over $1 million of the stolen funds. Families like the Mazzas lost around $250,000 due to his actions. Del Vecchio worked at Freedom Finance, where he convinced more than 30 clients their money was safely invested in high-interest term deposits. Instead, he used the funds to gamble, often encouraged by VIP managers from betting companies. These managers offered incentives to keep him betting any winnings, fuelling further losses.

Judge Cannon criticised the betting agencies for accepting and facilitating Del Vecchio's gambling with stolen money. Despite this, MintBet, one of the agencies involved, refused to confirm whether due diligence was carried out on the source of the funds. Casey McCutcheon, the director and compliance officer of MintBet, declined to comment on the matter. Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has repeatedly tried to introduce laws forcing betting agencies to return stolen money. His three attempts have all been rejected by federal parliament. Wilkie accused both the government and opposition of operating a 'protection racket' for the gambling industry, allowing such practices to continue unchecked.

Del Vecchio's sentence comes after his fraud left clients with significant financial losses. The case has highlighted concerns over the role of betting agencies in accepting suspicious funds. Meanwhile, legislative efforts to hold these companies accountable have so far failed to gain traction.