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This is incredible. When will people learn to take responsibility for their own actions instead of always looking for someone else to blame? No one held a gun to his head and MADE him go in there ffs.
linkI’m not so sure about this Batty. The guy was clearly ”addicted’ to gambling and made numerous (and apparently unsuccessful) attempts to stop.
A betting company has a duty of care towards its clients to act reasonably and sensibly. They ought not to encourage a person to gamble their life away particularly as they had been put on notice that he had a major problem with ”gambling addiction”.
It seems to me that if they are expressly asked NOT to allow credit bets etc etc, as was the case here, then they ought to ensure that they don’t take this guy’s bets. If they choose to allow him to continue and as a result of it he gets into this position, then they HAVE got to accept a share of the responsibility.
They might say that he could have won as easily as he lost …. but this avoids the point, which is that he would have simply continued until he ultimately ran out of funds / credit. The end result would still have been the same.
Yeah ok I see your point, but surely if that particular betting shop had refused to let him bet, he,d have just gone somewhere else and opened up another account?
It,s just my way of thinking I suppose. In my opinion if no one holds a gun to your head and physically MAKES you do it, you have to take some responsiblity for yourself surely? Yes I see that he,d asked them NOT to let him bet and they apparantly still allowed him to do so, but again, he didn,t HAVE to go in there did he? Hence my point about him taking some responsibility for his own actions. It,s the same kind of thing with credit cards. People manage to get hold of numerous ones and end up owing thousands, then blame the credit card company. Again, they didn,t force them to apply for it, and certainly didn,t make them use it, so people still have to take some of the responsibility for thier actions. It will be interesting to see what the outcome of this case is.In essence you are saying that life is all about the choices you make and the consequences to yourself (and others) as a result of those choices, and I agree with this.
BUT when a person is ADDICTED to something, their freedom of choice largely disappears and the addiction is what drives them – in this case gambling.
Companies have a ‘duty of care’ towards their customers, be they betting organisations or the local greengrocer. Had he NOT put them on notice of his addiction and EXPRESSLY asked them to prohibit him from using their services then he wouldn’t have had much of a case.
But because he made this stipulation and because they clearly (for a profit motive no doubt) broke it, they have to take the consequences that flow from their decision.
I’ll bet ( :lol: ) that he wins his case – which incidentally will be in the form of a claim for damages against them for failing to exercise their duty of care towards him.
A buisness is a buisness. It’s there to make money. Do you really expect the Bookies to tell people that they cant take the bet.
If the guy knew he was addicted, and was losing money, he could have went to Gamblers Anonymous.
Even if the Bookies had knocked him back, Im sure one of their rivals would have happily taken the bet, and the guy would have lost his money anyway.
True BM, but in these enlightened days of ‘corporate responsibility’ businesses HAVE to behave in such a way so as not to cause damage or loss to their customers. (I mean damage or loss in the sense of the Law of Torts).
Yes of course there is always the contributory negligence factor at work here – he COULD have gone to Gamblers Anonymous, and we don’t know whether he diid or not – but he also did take reasonable steps to avoid his problem by asking the business NOT to trade with him.
Had they refused outright and just carried on allowing him to gamble, then they might not have been liable to him in Tort for any loss or damage that he may have suffered as a result of his actions.
BUT… because they agreed initially to withdraw the facility to place bets, and then subsequently made a business decision to re-instate the facility, having been put on notice by his earlier request, they have to take the consequences of their action.
I wonder what his position would be if he had won whilst on the self inflicted ban… perhaps the bookies could have sued him.
God only knows .. particularly since you can only sue for ”loss and damage”.
I guess that the bookie allowed him back to gamble some more, safe in the knowledge that even if he won a bit …. he would be bound to lose over time and that therefore they would make a profit out of his addiction.
Its a bit like suing the pub landlord for serving the alcholic.
There is only so far you can go before you have to admit the problem is yours and you need help.
Suing the bookies will not help his recovery for his illness, and will take the focus of his illness away from himself. This is Not what an addict actually needs.
If he wins the case that makes him seem he was right, when clearly he wasnt.
Why does someone with an income of 30k plus per month gamble? Because he is ill and that is what he should be addressing, rather than trying to cream back some of his money.
Apparantly the Ryder Cup was the deciding factor in this case. Had the outcome been the opposite would he have given his winnings back because he was on a “ban”? Course he would :wink:
Interesting to use a pub as an analogy. If a publican serves ‘intoxicating liqquor’ to a customer who is ”drunk” …. he commits an offence. If he does it regularly, he can lose his license. (There are numerous other offences under the Licensing Acts and Public Order Regulations that also apply to pubs and alchohol consumption).
Bookie’s premises also are regulated, but only in the hours that they can open and suchlike, NOT in the frequency (or amount) of bets they can take. That bit is self-regulating by virtue of the funds available to the gambler.
The crucial issue here is that the gambler asked to be stopped from gambling AND the bookie agreed to this condition….. this was the bookie’s big mistake.
This immediatly creates a duty of care on the bookie. IF the bookie had refused to decline bets and insisted that the gambler controlled his habit / addiction himself … then there would have been no actual duty of care created. (There might have been an implied duty of care – but it probably wouldn’t have been actionable).
Yes I know it sounds crazy, but this is the Law of Torts for you.
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