A FORMER director of Brabco - which owns 75 per cent of Dumbarton Football Club - has been disqualified from becoming involved in the “promotion, formation, or management of a company” for 12 years following an investigation into his betting firm, which went bust with debts of more than £7million write Adam Thomas and Kyle Crawford.

Andrew Hosie, 44, ran Gambling Insight Ltd as an investment vehicle for arbitrage gambling.

This involved a mathematical system under which bets were to be placed with different betting companies to enable a profit to be made, regardless of the outcome, by using the variance in odds offered by different bookmakers.

An Insolvency Service Investigation revealed he acquired an estimated £7,161,221 from both direct investors and syndicates, who were given the impression that the gambling of the investment monies was virtually risk free.

He even made the claim “it is a mathematical certainty we will win and profit tax free”.

However, after the company went into administration, almost none of the money has been traced, due to inadequacies in the company accounting records.

In addition, Mr Hosie has admitted he misled investors and gave them false information on a number of occasions, including:

  • Continuing to inform new and existing investors of the low risks of the investment after losing an estimated £2.5m of syndicate money in February 2014.
  • Failing to inform new and existing investors that he began gambling with their monies from that time, contrary to his agreement with them that arbitrage gambling would be conducted at no risk.
  • Sending screenshots to investors from July 2014 which showed healthy balances on those accounts, which he knew to be untrue.
  • Informing syndicate investors that over £1m of investor monies were frozen in a bank account, when he knew that was also untrue.

Mr Hosie was also a director of Bet Butler Ltd, a bookmaker which sponsored Dumbarton FC’s stadium for two years until 2014, and Betclearer Ltd, which is Bet Butler’s parent company.

Both companies went bust in 2015, with Betclearer Ltd going into voluntary liquidation.

Andrew Hosie and his father Callum bought the majority shareholding in Dumbarton from Neil Rankine in 2007 and formed Brabco 736 Ltd.

The company still holds 75 per cent of the club’s shares.

Andrew Hosie was a director of Brabco until July 28, 2012, when he resigned, shortly before Dumbarton announced the stadium sponsorship deal with Bet Butler.

Callum Hosie remains a director of Brabco, while Colin Hosie, his cousin, is the club’s vice-chairman, having previously held the role of chairman.

Dumbarton director Ian Wilson is also a director of Betclearer Ltd, alongside Andrew Hosie.

Mr Hosie’s disqualification prevents him from directly or indirectly becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company.

The Reporter understands Mr Hosie accepted all of the charges against him and, as a result, avoided the maximum penalty of a 15-year disqualification.

There’s no allegation that Mr Hosie has committed any wrongdoing in the administration of Dumbarton FC or any of his other companies.

Ade Daramy, a spokesman for the Insolvency Services, said he has never come across a case like this before.

He added: “We’ve not taken any action against any associates of Mr Hosie, so we couldn’t comment on them.

“We felt that at least this action should be taken. The maximum is 15 years and, when cases are deemed to be particularly serious, we always go for the maximum.

"With the evidence we had, we felt confident in getting that. It was a particularly serious breach, not a minor thing.

“It is an unusual case, I say that as someone who has been in this job for six years, as well as the investigations side, I’ve never come across this.

"There are all sorts of ways people come up with to sell investment ideas and people get drawn in by a slick brochure, website or by the level of returns and they then invest money.

“This is the first step in putting a stop to his activities in case he is thinking of doing it again.

“He can’t even be a shadow director behind the scenes, pulling the strings. If that is the case, he could be jailed for that.”