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A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for stealing more than $692,000 from his employer and losing it to online gambling, in a case that has drawn attention for the unusual way he tried to explain how he got there. Austen Strom, of Dilworth, was sentenced this week in US District Court in Fargo after pleading guilty to bank fraud. The account here is based on reporting by the Star Tribune and other Minnesota outlets.
The theft itself was methodical. Strom had worked at F-M Forklift for about eight years, the last three or four as its bookkeeper, a role that gave him control of the books. From March 2024 to April 2025 he wrote checks from the company's bank account to himself without authorization, in amounts ranging from about $1,250 to nearly $29,611, forging an owner's signature. When the company's owners confronted him, he admitted he had funneled close to $700,000 into his own account and gambled it away online.
The ESPN claim, in context
The detail that made headlines is Strom's assertion that his gambling problem traces back to a free ESPN app he says he used as a minor, a now-defunct prediction game he described as being aimed at young users. It is worth being careful and precise here, because the framing matters. The app he pointed to is not ESPN Bet, the real-money sportsbook; it was one of ESPN's old free pick'em-style prediction games, which paid no cash to ordinary players and has since been shut down. And the claim that it caused his addiction is his own argument in mitigation, not a finding by the court. We report it as what it is: an unproven blame-shift offered by a defendant facing sentencing.
That said, the argument taps a real and growing debate. A wave of lawsuits now accuses sportsbook and prediction apps of using deliberately addictive design, and critics argue that free, gamified prediction products can function as a gateway that normalizes betting for young people before they ever place a real wager. Whether a free game a decade ago can be blamed for a six-figure embezzlement is a stretch a judge did not have to accept, and the sentence suggests he did not. But the underlying worry, that betting-style mechanics reach people young and escalate, is exactly what responsible-gambling advocates have been raising.
The sentence
Beyond the 15 months in prison, Strom was ordered to serve five years of supervised release, repay more than $692,000 in restitution to F-M Forklift, and undergo treatment for gambling addiction. As a condition of his release, the judge barred him from "any form of gambling," including lotteries, online wagering and sports betting, and from entering casinos. It is a sentence that treats the gambling as both cause and ongoing risk, punishing the theft while trying to prevent the behavior that drove it from recurring.
One piece of local context: Minnesota has not legalized online sports betting, one of a shrinking number of states still without a regulated market. That does not mean residents cannot gamble online; it means the wagering that does happen there runs through offshore or unregulated channels that carry none of the deposit limits, self-exclusion tools, or affordability checks that licensed US operators are required to offer.
Our take
Two things are true at once here, and it does no one any good to collapse them into one. The blame aimed at a free childhood app is a weak causal claim, the kind a defense raises to soften a sentence, and a court was right to focus on the crime: a trusted bookkeeper forged checks for a year and stole three-quarters of a million dollars. Personal responsibility for that does not transfer to an app.
At the same time, the case is a blunt reminder of what gambling addiction actually costs, not in abstract "handle" figures but in a wrecked career, a defrauded employer, and years of a life. We cover betting because it is legal, popular, and, played within limits, entertainment; we also think the industry's growth makes honest coverage of its harms non-negotiable. The useful takeaway is not the ESPN headline. It is that problem gambling escalates quietly and can end somewhere like a federal courtroom, and that help exists before it gets there. If any of this sounds familiar, 1-800-GAMBLER is free, confidential, and available right now.