Simon Rose has launched a High Court action against Ladbrokes’ parent company Entain, who reportedly allowed him to lose £231,000 ($270,000) over seven months of bets between 2015 and 2016, with his wagers totalling £1.8m.
Rose bet an average of £18,000 on the days he gambled, having been given a daily deposit of £20,000, despite take-home pay of just £3,000 per month.
The High Court action from Rose suggests that it was a clear failure on behalf of the gambling giant to protect its customers from the harms of problem gambling, while also breaching anti-money laundering guidelines.
It also states that Ladbrokes should have monitored Rose’s levels of excessive betting and either contacted him directly, placed restrictions on his account, or verified his source of funds.
Ladbrokes has denied that it breached any contractual terms, but Rose claims the company made no effort to check his source of funds or communicate with him about any potential problem gambling issues until his losses reached £100,000.
It was at this stage that Ladbrokes confirmed he had borrowed money to place bets and was gambling more than he could afford, with Rose then self-excluding from all gambling in May 2016.
The action comes less than a fortnight after Entain was fined a record £17m for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures, for both its online and land-based businesses.
This involved £14m for failures at its online business LC International Limited which runs 13 websites, and £3m for failures at its Ladbrokes Betting & Gaming Limited operating across the UK.
