A coroner condemned a British gambling operator for its failure to intervene over a large number of wagers placed by a gambling addict before he committed suicide, making it the first “verdict” of its kind in the country.
According to campaigners, the verdict was unprecedented in its harsh criticism of a gambling company and in identifying a gambling disorder as a major contributing factor in a person’s untimely death. Apart from criticising the betting operator, the coroner shared that he also intended to publish a report about the case that would be focused on the prevention of future gamblers’ deaths.
Luke Ashton took his own life in April 2021 after suffering from a deteriorating gambling problem, a Leicester-based judicial inquiry heard. Following a three-day hearing, the area coroner Ivan Cartwright noted that a severe gambling disorder has significantly contributed to the young man’s death. The coroner highlighted the fact that the gambling company assessed Mr Ashton as a low-risk gambler, although his gambling activity was more intensive over the 10 weeks preceding his death.
As Cartwright shared, the company – Betfair – did not initiate any interaction with the gambler and did not intervene with Luke Ashton’s activity in any meaningful way in the period from 2019 to the date of the young man’s death, when it was obvious it should have been more proactive in addressing the issue.
Flutter Entertainment Placed as “Interested Person” in Jucidial Inquiry
As mentioned above, the hearing was considered the first time a gambling operator had been formally involved in a judicial inquiry.
The owner of Betfair – Flutter Entertainment – was placed as an “interested person” in the proceedings.
During the aforementioned inquest, Betfair acknowledged that it could have done more in order to protect the gambler more effectively against potential gambling-related harm. The company revealed that it used an online bet algorithm that was supposed to identify whether a customer was at risk of gambling harm or not. The coroner, however, revealed that the algorithm in question failed to identify Mr Ashton as a customer at risk who had been involved in increased betting patterns in the period right before his death.
The ruling was welcomed by Luke Ashton’s widow, who shared that the verdict finally vindicated what she had argued for quite some time – that gambling had a detrimental impact on people’s families and could lead to suicides. Ms Ashton remains hopeful that all gambling companies will take the judicial proceedings and the harsh criticism that is being faced by Betfair into account, so they would adjust their customer protection and customer interaction practices as soon as possible to prevent further deaths caused by the detrimental impact of gambling services.
According to her, gambling companies should also reconsider their categorisation of gamblers, especially the ones that are considered subjects of low risk, as these policies have obviously been unfit for the purposes of risk assessment and harm prevention.
- Author
Olivia Cole
