European Gaming Lawyer magazine Spring 2016 | Page 24

Never a dull moment
Susanna FitzGerald QC

F

Susanna FitzGerald QC

ilm moguls have a rich source of
inspiration in some recent cases on
gambling law. One could be made
into a gritty British film, another
a Hollywood movie, and a third is
just pure theatre. I have not met any of the individual
parties, and I hope I will be forgiven for allowing my
imagination to flow, so the comments in brackets are
purely my imagination in setting the scene, but the
facts themselves come from the judgments.
The first case is not that recent but the issue is
topical: was there duty of care owed to a gambler by
a gambling operator? The case is Calvert v. William
Hill Credit Limited [2008] EWCA Civ. 1427, and it
was a sad case, indeed a tragic one and could make
a tough British film. Mr. Calvert, a married man
with two children, was a professional trainer of
greyhounds, a business that he ran with his mother,
and he was a respected man in his field. (Imagine a
grey rainy British day, out in the country, with Mr.
Calvert in his country clothes and wellies, going to
the dog kennels.) Mr. Calvert was also a compulsive
gambler and a successful one, earning about £50,000
per annum net from his gambling, and the money
supported his lifestyle (his and his family’s). He was
mostly betting on greyhounds about which, of course,
he had a considerable knowledge.
However, because of his success at betting,
the bookmakers started limiting his betting on
greyhounds (what should he do now?) so he began
betting on other things and, as he did not have the
detailed knowledge that he had on the dogs, he
became less successful. During 2006 matters got
out of hand, and he became first a problem gambler
and then a pathological one, gambling considerable
amounts in a variety of bookmakers, including
betting by telephone with William Hill. He did have
moments of clarity. (What am I doing, what have I

24 | European Gaming Lawyer | Spring Issue | 2016

done) and closed accounts with several bookmakers.
Finally, at the end of 2006, he ran out of money and,
in the words of the Judge, he ruined himself. (Despair
and guilt.)
There were at least a couple of occasions when he
attempted to self-exclude from William Hill. As this
case was before the Gambling Act 2005 came into
force, there were no conditions on William Hill’s
licence requiring policies and procedures about
self-exclusion, but William Hill sensibly had adopted
its own social responsibility codes which provided,
inter alia, for a self-exclusion policy (and a specific
self-exclusion agreement with a disclaimer of liability
in it), and Mr. Calvert based part of his claim on
that. The relevant attempt to self-exclude was with
a William Hill employee called John. (Imagine an
inexperienced young man doing his best.) John
assured Mr. Calvert that he was self-excluded, the
account was closed, and could not be reopened for six
months. However, John failed to implement the selfexclusion, or the self-exclusion agreement, and Mr.
Calvert was able continue betting with William Hill.
At the same time he was also betting with a variety
of other bookmakers. After he ran out of money, Mr.
Calvert sued William Hill on the basis of a breach of
duty of care owed to him, partly based on William
Hill’s own codes, and he claimed his losses.
However, the Judge did not find that there was
any general duty of care owed to Mr. Calvert. Just
because William Hill had a social responsibility
policy did not mean it had voluntarily assumed
responsibility to all its problem gambler customers,
in the sense of assuming responsibility to take care,
with a concomitant liability to compensate customers
injured in their mind or their pocket by any failure
to take care. The Judge said problem gamblers do
not uniformly have such an impairment that they
are so vulnerable as to require special treatment