An Oceanside, Calif., unregistered broker has been charged with raising $1.9 million from investors and using the money to pay his gambling debts, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday.

Gregory Ruehle has been charged civilly by the SEC and criminally by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California with fraudulently selling purported stock in a medical device company and pocketing investors’ money.

The money was raised from about 100 investors. Ruehle used the money for personal expenses, including gambling debts, the SEC says.

Ruehle began his scheme in 2012, misrepresenting to investors in California and Minnesota that he would sell them his personally owned securities in a La Jolla, Calif.-based medical device company called ICB International Inc., the SEC complaint says. He was a former consultant for the company. Ruehle, however, sold investors far more securities than he actually owned, and those he did own were not transferable, the SEC says. Ruehle never disclosed these facts to investors.