By J Swygart
The Lima News, Ohio
LIMA, Ohio — Former Allen County Sheriff Sam Crish reportedly will serve the remainder of an 11-year federal prison sentence for extortion and accepting bribes linked to his exorbitant gambling debts at a residential re-entry facility in Cincinnati. As he awaits release, he is hoping to help others avoid the pitfalls that landed him behind bars in the first place.
The ex-sheriff recently talked about his gambling addiction with a non-profit organization with a mission of raising awareness of gambling-related dangers. The full interview with Crish is available online at bit.ly/49Fk8kC.
During a 90-minute online interview with Brian Pempus, founder and editor-in-chief of GamblingHarm.org, the one-time lawman said he started gambling at an early age, playing tip boards at local trap shooting events he attended with his father. Later in life, Crish acknowledged, he failed to see his own gambling addiction or to recognize addictive behavior in others.
As a lawman, Crish said, he would often engage with criminals who blamed their actions on drugs or alcohol. He downplayed their addictions.
“I told them if alcohol is the problem, why don’t you just quit drinking? But it was the same with me and gambling,” Crish said in the video. “When I went into rehab in 2016 I asked the counselor, ‘Why am I here? I don’t have a gambling problem.’ But in rehab, I learned differently.”
Crish is currently listed by the federal Bureau of Prisons as an inmate at the Cincinnati Residential Re-entry Management facility. Records show he was transferred from a Memphis prison camp to Cincinnati in November 2025. His expected release date is July 2028, according to the BOP.
It started early
Crish said he started gambling as an adult at Indiana riverboat casinos, playing mostly quarter slot machines. But it was in 2012, when a casino opened in Toledo, that his habits began to get out of control.
“It was too easy,” he said of the proximity of a casino just an hour up the interstate from his Allen County home. “I started going up there pretty often. I thought to myself, ‘This is not a big deal; it’s fun.’
“There were some people who told me that if you want to win money, you’ve got to play big. So I went from quarter slots to playing blackjack for up to $1,000 a hand. I remember once taking $2,000 to the casino, running it up to $45,000 and then losing it all.”
Gambling is legal in Ohio, but it came at a cost. Federal prosecutors said Crish ran up gambling debts that topped $600,000. And his debt mounted, Crish began to “rob Peter to pay Paul,” he said.
“What I did was I borrowed money from people. I’ve never denied that. It was ethically wrong,” he said in the video. “But I was living two lives. During the day I was the sheriff, trying to take care of other people’s problems. I had my own problems, but I was hiding them. It was horrible. Who was I going to tell? What do I do? How do I get help?”
He even contemplated suicide as the depression mounted. It was about that time that federal agents began looking into Crish’s personal habits.
“Did I ever think I would go to prison? I never gave that any consideration,” Crish told GamblingHarm.org.
He took a plea deal from federal prosecutors to avoid what could have been, in effect, a life sentence.
Serving time
Crish had few good things to say about federal prison camps in West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, where he has been housed since 2019. Even in prison, gambling is prevalent, he said, and there are no programs offered to help inmates with addictions.
“Those prison camps are a waste of time and money. Gambling was prevalent. A lot goes on: cards, dice… mostly sports betting,” Crish said. “It was challenging, but I didn’t get involved with any of that. I didn’t want to get out (of prison) and go right back into gambling.”
Crish told GamblingHarm.com he is currently on “home confinement” at the Cincinnati re-entry center with “close to two more years” to serve in the prison system. In the mean time, he wears a GPS ankle bracelet and mows lawns at a nearby golf course.
“I’m going to rebuild my life,” he said. “I want to get the word out — to help people — that gambling is a horrible addiction. I want to make a difference. If one person sees this (video) and that stops them from becoming addicted .. well, how do you put a price tag on that?”
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© 2026 The Lima News (Lima, Ohio). Visit www.limaohio.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
