Ladbrokes are heading to the High Court after being accused of allowing a problem gambler to continue betting large sums of money without restricting their account.
Simon Rose claims that he was allowed to bet £1.8 million over a seven month period. This covered 2015 and 2016 and an average day saw him gambling £18,000. That time period saw him incur losses of £231,000.
During that time no checks were made regarding anti-money laundering. Rose was given a deposit limit of £20,000 but his wages were only £3,000 a month. It’s alleged that there was a clear failure by Ladbrokes in terms of protecting their customers from gambling harm.
The legal action says Ladbrokes should have monitored how much Mr Rose was gambling and made contact with him. There should have been restrictions based on his account and more attempts made to determine just where all his money was coming from.
However, according to Mr Rose this just didn’t happen until his losses had reached the £100,000 mark. When asked where his finances were coming from, he told them that he had borrowed the money. He did admit that the amounts gambled were more than he could afford to lose.
In the end, a £1,000 weekly deposit limit was placed on his Ladbrokes account. It wasn’t the betting company that did that though, Rose says he did that himself. Within a few months he asked for the deposit limit to be increased to £20,000 a day and was allowed to do so. In May 2016, he finally took the step of self excluding himself from all gambling.
Ladbrokes have denied that any contractual terms had been breached. It’s another worry for the company who are owned by Entain. Earlier this month, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) ordered Entain to make a regulatory settlement of £17 million.
That decision was reached after the UKGC found that there had been failings regarding social responsibility and anti-money laundering checks. These were “repeated and unacceptable” say the Gambling Commission. They warned Entain that further failings could lead to them having their licence taken away.
Recent months have seen the UKGC become increasingly stricter towards those they have granted licences to. When we finally get a new Prime Minister elected, the long-awaited White Paper on reforming the 2005 Gambling Act will be published. One of the measures that is rumoured to be included are stricter affordability checks for customers.
