Gaming Intelligence – A New York art gallery owner has been sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $6.4m in connection with his leadership role in the operation of a high stakes illegal online sports gambling business. Two other men were also sentenced yesterday to five years in prison for participating in a racketeering conspiracy related to the same case.
Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that Hillel Nahmad was sentenced yesterday by District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan federal court to one year and one day in prison, and also ordered to forfeit $6.4m and all his right, title, and interest in the painting Carnaval à Nice, 1937 by Raoul Dufy to the US government.
“For art gallery owner Helly Nahmad, running a multimillion-dollar illegal sports gambling business came with a steep price, forfeiture of over $6m and time behind bars – a punishment he likely never pictured,” said Bharara.
According to the indictment, Nahmad operated the Helly Nahmad Gallery out of the Carlyle Hotel in New York. He and defendant Illya Trincher operated and led a nationwide illegal gambling business in New York City and Los Angeles that catered primarily to multi-millionaire and billionaire clients.
As part of the business, the organization ran a high stakes illegal sportsbook that utilized several online gambling websites operating illegally in the US. The organization booked bets that were often in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and at times a million dollars, on a single sporting event, according to authorities.
The organization also made millions of dollars of sports bets each year. Nahmad was the primary source of financing for the illegal gambling business, and he was entitled to a substantial share of its profits.
