Forty punters have filed a complaint with the public prosecutor of Nanterre against the sports betting training and advice site PronoClub,
Le Parisien
revealed on Monday
.
They accuse him of having made disappear their bets after having promised returns up to 10%.
Some had entrusted PronoClub up to 20,000 euros.
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The victims, who could number in the thousands, no longer manage to be reimbursed for their initial stake.
This practice known as "copybetting" consists of collecting players' money to bet for them.
“Intermediation is prohibited on online games,”
explains the National Games Authority.
In addition, it is no longer a gamble but a financial investment. "
This intermediary placement service, which claimed nearly 5,000 subscribers, was closed in the spring.
"Scam of historic magnitude"
“This is a monumental case,
judge lawyer Olivier Géral, who plans to file a collective complaint to defend several hundred victims.
It is akin to a scam, breach of trust or even fraudulent business practices ”.
The latter believes that the site, which was not even registered as a sports betting operator, has mounted
"a scam of historic magnitude in sports betting in France".
Its founder and sole partner, Thomas Boursin, launched PronoClub last July, at just 23 years old.
"It is difficult to know if we are dealing with a top-flight con artist or someone totally immature,"
points out the victims' lawyer Olivier Géral, referring to the colossal sums involved and the way in which the entrepreneur displayed himself in national media in order to praise its site.
A major communication campaign
To sell its sports betting training videos, PronoClub has deployed intensive communication on social networks via influencers but also television advertising spots on TF1, BeIN Sports during the Football Euro or Touche
Pas à mon Poste
.
Celebrities like the world football champion Robert Pirès have even been asked to become the muses of PronoClub.
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It is impossible to know for the moment the precise mechanism of the supposed scam. The National Games Authority believes that the first elements are reminiscent of a Ponzi scheme. In this scheme of financial deception, the money of new investors helps finance the returns promised to the first investors.