In a victim impact statement tendered to the court, the woman’s daughter said her mother’s final years were spent in “great distress” as she oscillated between grief, anger, paranoia and anxiety, while gravelly ill and succumbing to cancer.

“Mr Marshall took away any peace my mother could have had,” the daughter said. “I did not get to enjoy my last three years with my only parent.”

Marshall stole more than $1.5 million from one victim through about 90 separate transactions, which went directly into his bank account.

The alarm was first raised when the victim was contacted by the Australian Taxation Office, which advised her to check her bank account. She then discovered about $20,000 was being taken every few days by Marshall, the court heard.

Marshall also stole from a friend who had lent him $10,000 to pay off his gambling debts. The court was told that after his friend loaned him the money, Marshall stole the friend’s password and bank details and secretly siphoned more than $20,000 from him.

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Mullaly said Marshall’s moral culpability was “very high”, and described his behaviour as sophisticated, devious and lacking in any personal responsibility or restraint.

“You knew what you were doing was wrong, but went ahead nonetheless … relentlessly,” the judge told him.

Marshall’s lawyer, Jim McGarvie, previously likened his addiction to a “deformed delusion”, and said betting agencies had fed his addiction.

McGarvie told the court last month that as Marshall’s gambling addiction worsened, he was flooded with offers of bonus bets, thousands of dollars in credits to punt, and assigned VIP managers by betting agencies who frequently called and texted him in a bid to keep him trapped in the frenzy of gambling.

“He was given offers of bonus bets … ‘Put in $5000, we will give you 100 per cent of that in credits’ … just to keep the machine going,” McGarvie said.

One of his victims, Kym Cavigan, 53, told this masthead earlier this year that Marshall had defrauded her of more than $730,000, and revealed she was launching landmark legal action against Sportsbet, one of the main betting agencies that the accountant used, to crawl back her money.

Outside court on Tuesday, Cavigan said Sportsbet was profiting from stolen money, and she would not rest until the system was fixed.

“What type of world do we live in where it is beyond any reasonable doubt that Sportsbet has received money stolen from Andrew Marshall? … Yet despite knowing this considers it is their money to keep,” she said.

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“It is reprehensible. Everyone in the industry, including the gambling companies, regulators and lawmakers individually ought to be ashamed.”

McGarvie previously told the court there were striking similarities between his client’s case and that of Melbourne financial planner Anthony Del Vecchio, who stole almost $4.5 million from family and friends to fund a voracious gambling addiction.

Del Vecchio was jailed for more than seven years earlier this year as a judge called the behaviour of online betting agencies that fed his habit “evil”.

Marshall will be eligible for parole in four years and three months.