A compulsive gambler is suing William Hill for £2m he lost on bets after asking the UK bookmaker not to accept wagers from him.
Graham Calvert, a respected and highly successful greyhound trainer from the north-east of England, was at one stage earning £30,000 a month through his trade. He initially took to betting up to £5,000 a time at William Hill and is understood to have quickly escalated to placing single bets of up to six times this amount.
Calvert claims that in May 2006 he asked William Hill to close his account, but that his self-exclusion order was not effective, as he was allowed to continue placing bets with the bookmaker until December.
Calvert’s legal representatives maintain that William Hill should be held responsible for the losses because it did not successfully implement its own self-exclusion policies. William Hill is vigorously defended the allegations.
