Fifty-year-old Australian Wendy Hope Jobson has pleaded guilty to six counts in a shocking case of internet gambling addiction which saw her steal almost A$ 8 million from her employers - the Koroneos hotel group.
As Jobson's lawyers claim she was out of touch with reality: she used internet banking to steal money from her employer on 1410 occasions over five years spending it on internet gambling and on other personal purchases including a car, house payments and a corporate box at the Etihad stadium.
So valued was her business that the online casino operator where she used to gamble, the Playtech-powered 21Nova Casino, doubled her promotional credits.
Psychiatrist Sylvia Solinski told the Supreme Court judge she had no doubt whatsoever that Jobson had dissociative identity disorder with at least 10 different personalities, and she was unsure which one was dominant at the time she committed the crime.
The owner of the group said he was alerted to some unusual transactions by his bank manager in September 2011, and when he confronted Jobson with the evidence she broke down and confessed but begged him not to go to the police.
A trusted employee, Jobson had worked for the company for the past 16 years and was treated as a member of the owner's family, who had thought, before the thefts came to light, that the company was struggling with renovation expenses and rising pokie machine overheads.
Police reported that Jobson was shocked to hear the total sum she had stolen - she even tried to win back her losses which she noted down in a notebook so she could replace the money and would not be found out.
"One time I won $1 million but they only paid you $20,000 every four days, so you can imagine sitting there waiting for the money to come back, and it's not coming, so you would keep gambling because why not? It's there. And I'd lose it.," she told police investigators