Widow of gambling addict takes Betfair to court

The widow of Luke Ashton, who took his own life after getting into debt through gambling, is taking legal action against Betfair, claiming that the firm was negligent.

Luke Ashton died in April 2021 after amassing a £18,000 debt due to his gambling. He placed thousands of bets with Betfair, who sent him promotional ‘free’ bets designed to keep people using the service.

Ashton did sign up for temporary exclusions from gambling with Betfair three times. However, each time the exclusion expired he returned to betting with them. Over three years, he lost over £21,000.

When Ashton was furloughed during the pandemic, his betting increased, placing over a thousand bets in one month and losing over £5,000. The number of ‘free’ bets he received from Betfair also increased during that time.

Although Ashton had opted out receiving promotions from Betfair Exchange, the opt-out did not extend to other parts of Betfair, and he took part in several ‘free’ bet offers over a three year period.

In 2023, a coroner’s inquest heard that Ashton had left notes for his family before he died, mentioning gambling and saying that he had “demons”. The coroner criticised Betfair, saying that “more efforts to intervene or interact should have been made”.

Lawyers for the Ashton family claim that Betfair was negligent since it did not intervene as Luke’s losses increased, breaching their duty of care. If successful, the legal claim would establish a duty of care for betting companies toward their customers. Other claims in the past that have tried to hold gambling firms liable in this way have failed. A successful outcome could open the door to more claims against the gambling industry which earned more than £12bn in the UK last year.

Betfair are part of the international gambling company Flutter, which is estimated to be worth £13bn. Betfair denies that it owed Ashton a duty of care, saying that he would have lost money with another firm if he did not do so with them. Betfair say that Ashton failed to inform them that he had a gambling disorder and that his losses were due to his “own contributory negligence”.