A Canberra court has frozen assets belonging to a former ACTTAB manager who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the betting agency over a decade and ordered she pay a $1 million penalty.
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Pamela Susan Close, 60,was sentenced to one year behind bars after she admitted using false documents to swindle $1.42 million from her employer between 2001 and 2010.
The Macgregor grandmother pleaded guilty in the ACT Supreme Court to charges of defrauding the territory and obtaining property by deception.
She was due to stand trial in May on 592 charges, but instead admitted the two counts that covered her activities while she was an ACTTAB employee.
Close, a betting accounts manager, worked for ACTTAB for 20 years but spent the second decade of her employment siphoning funds from the agency to fuel her gambling addiction.
The court previously heard Close used a glitch in the agency's wagering system after a false start to reopen finished races and put trifecta bets on the victors.
She then collected the winnings through fake accounts.
Police uncovered the scam after ACTTAB conducted an investigation into suspect betting activities in May 2010 and found races were being reopened more often than usual.
Close told the court she gave some of the money to charity, but gambled and drank the rest.
She was jailed for five years, with one year to be served full-time and a further 18 months as weekend detention.
The ACT Director of Public Prosecutions moved to have the Macgregor house and a 2004 Ford Falcon, which Close shared with her estranged husband, restrained or seized.
The DPP argued both were subject to automatic forfeiture under criminal assets legislation.
The pair each filed an application for an exclusion order to protect the property, arguing the DPP's actions were arbitrary and unlawful.
Close's estranged husband argued the forfeiture of the house was "disproportionate" because it was not directly linked to his wife's crimes, and he had invested time and effort into it.
He argued he would be left without a home when he was "entirely innocent of any wrongdoing".
In a judgment handed down in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday, Justice John Burns granted Close's application for an exclusion order and said the house and car should not be automatically forfeited because there was no direct link between the property and her offending behaviour.
He dismissed Close's ex-husband's application on grounds the DPP's attempts to seize the home didn't constitute a breach of rights.
But he ordered the property be restrained in order for Close to satisfy a $1,098,709.30 penalty.
Justice Burns said ensuring criminals did not profit from their crimes was an effective deterrent.
