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'LET DOWN': Former greyhound trainer Graham Calvert claims that bookmaker William Hill encouraged his gambling sprees. -- PHOTO: AFP
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LONDON - A COMPULSIVE gambler who says he lost £2 million (S$5.5 million), despite telling his bookmakers to stop taking his bets, began a legal case against William Hill yesterday.
Former greyhound trainer Graham Calvert, 28, from Wearside, was described by his counsel as a pathological gambler.
He lost an estimated £2.1million during a six-month period, which led to the loss of his livelihood, family and health.
Mr Calvert is seeking damages for negligence at a five-day hearing at the High Court in London.
His counsel, Ms Anneliese Day, told Justice Michael Briggs: 'This is an unusual case and one which raises important legal questions in relation to the law of negligence in respect of problem gamblers and those in a similarly vulnerable position.
'The claimant is a former problem pathological gambler who seeks damages.'
She said William Hill had been guilty of 'negligent encouragement and inducement' by not acting to curb Mr Calvert's gambling even though he had indicated he wanted the bookmaker to.
Far from doing that, the bookmaker had sought to encourage Mr Calvert to go on huge betting sprees, breaching its own own 'self-exclusion' policy, she added.
The policy enables customers to ask that their accounts be closed for six months or longer.
'Not only were his requests for self-exclusion incompetently implemented but William Hill also negligently sought to encourage the claimant to go on betting sprees of hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time, with greater and greater sums of money and in circumstances strictly controlled by them to ensure maximum revenue,' Ms Day said.
'William Hill's failings not only caused financial loss but also fuelled and worsened the claimant's disorder.'
Mr Calvert's lawyer claimed that William Hill was alone among leading betting chains in failing properly to manage such cases, and at one point opened a branch specifically so that Mr Calvert could place a £100,000 cash bet.
'They assert that they were entitled to do this whatever the consequences for him or his family by reason of the fact that the claimant was an adult of full capacity participating in an activity the law should provide no protection from,' she told the court.
'It is also clear from William Hill's own evidence and records that they were well aware that the claimant was continuing to bet in cash in an uncontrolled and destructive manner.'
At his gambling peak, Mr Calvert was placing multiple high-value bets in the space of a few hours, the court heard.
His losses included £347,000 on one bet alone, in which he forecast that the United States would win the Ryder Cup golf championship.
Ms Day said the government and the gambling industry itself recognised that those in Mr Calvert's position needed protection from 'the usual 'you are responsible for your own destiny' principles of gambling'.
Mr Calvert had indicated that he wished to self-exclude himself on at least two occasions, she said.
He spoke last week of the devastating impact his gambling had had on his private life, and insisted William Hill was to blame.
'If I'd known I had the problem and didn't do anything about it, I would see myself as being 100 per cent responsible,' he told the BBC. 'The fact is that I did try to go through the right procedures and I was let down.'
William Hill denies any wrongdoing and says it cannot be held legally liable for Mr Calvert's losses.
The hearing continues.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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