A betting dispute between a winning player and a major online bookmaker may have "test case" applications elsewhere in the industry.
Player Andy Green, from Lincolnshire, UK, won £1.7m playing a blackjack game on the site of bookmaker Betfred, using his mobile phone. His online account was credited with the money but when he tried to withdraw it, the company refused to pay. He has taken the case to the High Court in London.
Betfred said that there had been a software error and in its terms and conditions it was entitled to withhold the payment.
Green won £1,722,923.54 on the game in January 2018. He took a screenshot to prove what had happened, but he was called by a Betfred director who told him that his claim was being rejected through the software error.
He was offered £30,000 as a "goodwill" gesture if he agreed never to talk about the incident, but Green refused and the offer was doubled to £60,000, which again he refused.
He is suing Betfred and its parent company, Petfre, based in Gibraltar, for £2m to include interest he would have earned on the money.
The legal argument is around the 49 pages of terms and conditions and the game rules which Green ticked when he signed up to Betfred. There is a clause covering "pays and plays" that would be void in the event of a malfunction but by ticking the box, Green was agreeing with this.
However, his lawyer said that the Betfred terms and conditions are "incredibly complicated" and span across several different documents. “We are confident that, on their proper construction, the terms simply don’t allow for Betfred to withhold payment. If ‘pays and plays’ were void, then Betfred would have refunded other customers, but there is no evidence produced by the company to that effect."
The Betfred software is supplied by Playtech, who have apparently refused to confirm the software failure. It is obliged to notify the Gambling Commission if there is such a fault as it would be a "key event."
If the court decides in favour of the player, then it would open the door to other gamblers in dispute with their bookmaker over online bets if they were denied their winnings through a technical fault.
The case continues.
