Gimme my money back !

Being a big follower of the ‘luckyjim’ blog I was delighted to read his latest article posted on the Gutshot forum entitled ‘Beyond Responsibility?’ http://www.gutshot.com/articles/view.php

This article covers the now well published case of compulsive gambler Graham Calvert, who is attempting to recover £2.1 million gambling loses from William Hill bookmakers on the grounds that they failed to provide a ‘duty of care’ to him in permitting him to gamble after he had chosen to ‘self exclude’ himself from their bookmakers network.

As a compulsive gambler myself, I can certainly sympathise and empathise with Mr Calvert. I have been to the highs and hit the lows that gambling can take you. I have the ‘T’ shirt and bank statements to prove it. So is my empathy justified? Well I say YES.

Most ‘normal’ people on hearing of Mr Calvert’s case took the attitude of ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ and nobody forced him to wager the money. This attitude just shows our societies ignorance of the disease that is gambling addiction. The attitude that the individual is free to make his own choice simply does not stand up to someone with an addiction. How many of us can recognise a compulsive gambler? Simply you cannot; there are no outwardly visible signs, unlike drug and alcohol addiction. We know the support groups available to help the alcoholics, drug addicts and even the smokers, but why does society not view gambling in the same way?

In a rare moment of clarity in May 06 Graham Calvert realised he had a gambling problem and contacted Hills informing them of his problem and requested self exclusion from their services. Hills duly obliged, closed his account and informed him that he was self excluded for a period of 6 months. Yet two months later Mr Calvert was able to open another credit account and resumed his gambling with Hills by telephone betting and walking into their shops with sacks full of money. His gambling then hit new highs with one wager of £347,000 placed at 6/5 on the USA to win the 2006 Ryder Cup……they lost. At the time the bet was the worlds biggest ever bet placed on a golf event and Hills made much publicity from it. A Hills spokesman at the time stated that the punter was a high stakes telephone punter well known to him.

Graham Calvert did not go out of his way to deceive Hills in opening another account; he did after all open the new credit account in his own name. True he could have opened an account with any other bookmaker but he didn’t, he was permitted to open a new account with Hills. So why was this allowed to happed? Simply Hills did not offer a duty of care to Mr Calvert, a self confessed gambling addict, but were negligent in allowing the account to be set up. Why did no alarm bells sound when opening the account in his own name, did they not have a database of self excluded customers? By admitting the Ryder Cup punter was well known to them, the Hills spokesman was admitting a lack of duty of care to his client, if he was well know to him then he should have also known he was ‘self excluded’. It is obvious there has been a massive breakdown in Hills self exclusion policy. Their eagerness to take the punters money and increase the profits for it share holders outweighed there duty of care to the punter, a policy Hills seem to pay lip service to.

So what happens if Mr Calvert wins? Well he will probably get a substantial amount of his money back but more importantly the gambling industry will be made to sit up and take their responsibility to clients seriously and perhaps society will do likewise in recognising that compulsive gamblers are addicts that need more help and support just like alcoholics, drug users and smokers. If the case is lost, well then gamblers and their addiction will continue to be swept aside by society.

My name is (DasLoot) I am a compulsive gambler, I have had a good day today, I haven’t had a bet, but does anybody care?