Man sues bookies for 2 million

I work for William Hill and and reguarly encounter self-exclusion agreements. In regard to highstreet bookies (opposed to the online side) it is very hard to stop someone gambling in your shops. Thirty shops in my district, usually the person will only self exclude from the shop they reguarly visit, that is easy to enforce. However if they self-exclude from the whole district, a letter is sent round with picture and details to staff, but it is nearly impossible to enforce. Staff forget the picture within a day.

In this case it looks to be online or phone betting. Which I would have thought would be relatively easy to control, by just blacklisting name and DOB.


The new gambling commission laws may have an effect on the outcome of this. As bets are now a legally binding contract between bookie and punter, whereas prior to Sept07 they were just a gentlemans agreement.

Will be interesting to see.
 
I'm pretty sure that you can request to be excluded from betting in a particular store. Bookmakers do have stuff with GamCare, along the lines of recognising people who are addicted, but all the cashiers can do is give them a GamCare leaflet and refer them to the helpline. I was told at Ladbrokes (as an employee), that they cannot legally ban anyone from their stores. You can tell someone that they're barred, they may or may not take notice, but it's not enforceable.

Ladbrokes do monitor customers who stake large amounts, but it's all at the managers discretion. I've never seen a situation when someone behind the till has refused a bet from a punter because they believe they may be addicted. It's accepted that many of the punters are addicted to some degree, it's the nature of the business- the vast majority of a bookies turnover comes from regular customers.
 
^^^

Legally have to have self-exclusion options in order to have LBO licence afaik. Customer has be to willing obviously, you can also refuse service to anyone who wish as it is licensed premises. Only supposed to approach problem gamblers in exceptional circumstances, most people would not appreciate being approached for some obvioust reasons.
 
I can see this going the way of a couple who were compulsive borrowers from Lloyds a few years ago. Lloyds kept lending them money and failed in their duty of care, meaning £100k was written off as un-enforcable debt. Can defo see him winning this tbh...
 
Hahaha what a tool.
Why cant people be responsible for their own action these days? Why must it ALWAYS be someone elses fault?
 
peetee said:
IF anyone ends up paying it will be WHill, and it will be his own money being payed back,
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it won't be his own money they are paying back though - he'd have made a bet then this would have been offset by other bets from other punters - the bookie merely balances the books and changes his odds to decrease his risk (they take something like a 10% cut.)

If you bet 1.5 million in one go and lose the bookie may well just profit by 150K and large portion will be used to pay off winners - obviously the winners might well have then gone onto lose on other events but you can't clearly say that William hill actually made 1.5 million from him - he simply lost 1.5 million via William hill.

WH have made a mistake by allowing him to open an account but it is a two way thing - why, if he was that bothered about not gambling, did he not simply notify them of their mistake so the other account could be closed - the guy is a waste of space and deserves the case to be thrown out - it shouldn't be the job of companies to nanny weak individuals like him.
 
1) He was addicted, which limits his responsibility.
2) He had taken reasonable steps to control the addiction, by restricting his sources - having himself voluntarily banned.
3) If he was banned by William Hill, and they still let him gamble. Hence:
a) They failed in their duty of care.
b) If there was some kind of contract in place surrounding the ban, they are in breach of that contract.
4) Analogies to cigarettes are flawed, until you can voluntarily make an arrangement with shops to not sell you cigarettes, in which case if the shops went back on that arrangement, they too would be in the wrong.

He'll win, and that will be the right decision. Duty of care or breach of contract. Simple.
 
This really annoys me. The guy obviously has a huge problem and i do have sympathy for him but to blame the bookies is crazy and clutching at straws. A gambling addict will find a way to have a bet in the same way as an alcoholic will always find a drink. William Hill closed down his account as per his instructions, HE OPENED ANOTHER ACCOUNT and continued gambling. Therefore it is his fault. At some point adults have to take some responsibility for their own behaviour.If he hadn'd placed that extremely flawed ryder cup bet (which if nothing else shows that he didnt put a helluva lot of thought into his betting) with william hill he would have done it with someone else.
 
jamrag said:
This really annoys me. The guy obviously has a huge problem and i do have sympathy for him but to blame the bookies is crazy and clutching at straws. A gambling addict will find a way to have a bet in the same way as an alcoholic will always find a drink. William Hill closed down his account as per his instructions, HE OPENED ANOTHER ACCOUNT and continued gambling. Therefore it is his fault. At some point adults have to take some responsibility for their own behaviour.If he hadn'd placed that extremely flawed ryder cup bet (which if nothing else shows that he didnt put a helluva lot of thought into his betting) with william hill he would have done it with someone else.
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If the bookies agreed not to let him bet, and then let him bet, then they are at fault. QED.
 
jamrag said:
This really annoys me. The guy obviously has a huge problem and i do have sympathy for him but to blame the bookies is crazy and clutching at straws. A gambling addict will find a way to have a bet in the same way as an alcoholic will always find a drink. William Hill closed down his account as per his instructions, HE OPENED ANOTHER ACCOUNT and continued gambling. Therefore it is his fault. At some point adults have to take some responsibility for their own behaviour.If he hadn'd placed that extremely flawed ryder cup bet (which if nothing else shows that he didnt put a helluva lot of thought into his betting) with william hill he would have done it with someone else.
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They opened another account for him, they had a responsibility not to do this.
 
My cousin has barred himself from bookies after losing hundreds of thousands. Gamblers will always find a way to put on a wager. There will always be a way to gamble, online, casinos, playing poker. Cannot be the sole responsibility of the bookies to prevent him from gambling, especially when he's closed then opened another account.

If he wins he'll probably stick it all on black.

manoz said:
he should have gone or been pointed towards physiological help
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Like a massage is going to help :D
 
JoeMama said:
My cousin has barred himself from bookies after losing hundreds of thousands. There will always be a way to gamble, online, casinos, playing poker. Cannot be the sole responsibility of the bookies to prevent him from gambling, especially when he's closed then opened another account.
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No, but if he was gambling online or whatever, he wouldn't be suing William Hill, would he? You're right that it wouldn't be their responsibility in that case, but when they've promised not to let him gamble there, then they allow him to, they are responsible and are in the wrong.

JoeMama said:
If he wins he'll probably stick it all on black.
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That's ad hominem.
 
I don't really agree that he should succeed but legalities aside, if he did win then it may be of great help to compulsive gamblers and not 'necessarily' a bad thing.
 
Basher said:
They opened another account for him, they had a responsibility not to do this.
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did they? they offer an option to block the account which they did. He signed up again, he would have had to provide a different username and password so it would no doubt have been treated as a different account.

Anyway my point is that regardless of the rights and wrongs of what Hills did they are not responsible for the guy losing £2m. He is an adult an he chose to bet. He set up the new account knowing full well he couldnt use the old one therefore had that not worked he would have gone to ladbrokes or gone on betfair or left the house and visited a shop. If he had the savvy to use the blocker then presumably at some point on the road to losing the £2m it must have dawned on him that it was getting out of control again. He should have taken steps at this point to get further help.

He had the money, he bet the money, he lost it. It was his own fault.
 
I think William Hill have some blame but the guy said betting a few £100 did not give him a buzz any more so he would bet £30,000 on single bets. People have the chance to either say "look I can stop this and get on with my life" or " I will continue gambling" he choose the latter option.


Artticle about him betting on Ryder Cup
http://www.golfmagic.com/news/article/mps/uan/4834
 
jamrag said:
did they? they offer an option to block the account which they did. He signed up again, he would have had to provide a different username and password so it would no doubt have been treated as a different account.
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Different username and password? Big deal. He'd still have to use the same real name and what have you. If you can get around a ban by using a different username in spite of using the same name, address, etc, then their system is flawed and they're still in the wrong.

jamrag said:
Anyway my point is that regardless of the rights and wrongs of what Hills did they are not responsible for the guy losing £2m. He is an adult an he chose to bet. He set up the new account knowing full well he couldnt use the old one therefore had that not worked he would have gone to ladbrokes or gone on betfair or left the house and visited a shop. If he had the savvy to use the blocker then presumably at some point on the road to losing the £2m it must have dawned on him that it was getting out of control again. He should have taken steps at this point to get further help.
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That's irrelevant! He'd taken steps with William Hill and they went back on them. As I said earlier, it wouldn't have been their fault if he'd bet elsewhere, but it is their fault that he bet with them.

jamrag said:
He had the money, he bet the money, he lost it. It was his own fault.
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In part, yes, but William Hill were complicit in that loss after explicitly agreeing not to let him gamble with them.
 
vonhelmet said:
Different username and password? Big deal. He'd still have to use the same real name and what have you. If you can get around a ban by using a different username in spite of using the same name, address, etc, then their system is flawed and they're still in the wrong.



That's irrelevant! He'd taken steps with William Hill and they went back on them. As I said earlier, it wouldn't have been their fault if he'd bet elsewhere, but it is their fault that he bet with them.



In part, yes, but William Hill were complicit in that loss after explicitly agreeing not to let him gamble with them.
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So that gives him the right to claim the money back? I would assume that along the road to losing the total of £2m he would have won some fairly hefty bets along the way as well (unless he was incredibly bad at it) so can Hills claim that back from him?

I understand the points you have made but if we have reached the stage where the bookies can be held liable for his losses then i think thats fairly hellish. Is it genuinely right that he has a leg to stand on here? He's clearly realised he was totally in the **** and is trying to recoup anything he can by any means he can. It is hills fault that he bet with them but he is arguing presumably that he wouldnt have bet at all had they not let him open up a new account. Had they let him access his old account they would have some responsibility but not enough for him to get money back.

The sad thing is he is probably legally in the right and will end up getting a payout.
 
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