{"id":103108,"date":"2025-12-10T07:22:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/uk-property-tycoon-loses-appeal-over-1-5m-betfair-losses\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T07:22:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T07:22:22","slug":"uk-property-tycoon-loses-appeal-over-1-5m-betfair-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/uk-property-tycoon-loses-appeal-over-1-5m-betfair-losses\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Property Tycoon Loses Appeal Over \u00a31.5M Betfair Losses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"post-content__sub-title\">\n        Posted on: December 9, 2025, 06:07h.\u00a0\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"post-content__sub-title\">\n        Last updated on: December 9, 2025, 06:07h.\n    <\/p>\n<div class=\"post-info-panel\">\n<div class=\"post-info-panel__author-holder js-open-close\">\n<div class=\"post-info-panel__author-logo\">\n                <img alt=\"Avatar photo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-50x50.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-100x100.png 2x\" class=\"avatar avatar-50 photo\" height=\"50\" width=\"50\" decoding=\"async\"\/>            <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Property tycoon loses appeal to reclaim major Betfair gambling losses.<\/li>\n<li>Court rules Betfair not liable despite high-volume betting activity.<\/li>\n<li>Evidence showed gambler concealed issues and insisted he could afford losses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr\/>\n<p>A UK property tycoon who lost \u00a31.5 million (US$2 million) wagering soccer games at Betfair has lost his bid to claw the money back from the betting exchange in London\u2019s Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_364750\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-364750\" data-style=\"width: 858px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-post-thumbnail-858xAUTO wp-image-364750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Betfair-858x483.jpg\" alt=\"Betfair, Court of Appeal, gambling losses, Lee Gibson, UK betting law\" width=\"858\" height=\"483\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Betfair-858x483.jpg 858w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Betfair-430x242.jpg 430w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Betfair.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 858px) 100vw, 858px\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-364750\" class=\"text-description\">A British tycoon\u2019s attempt to reclaim massive betting losses failed in London\u2019s Court of Appeals Tuesday after evidence showed he insisted he could afford to gamble. (Image: Shutterstock\/Betfair)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Self-made millionaire Lee Gibson, from Leeds, England, lost the money by placing more than 30K soccer bets on the exchange between 2009 and 2019, when his account was suspended.<\/p>\n<p>He first brought a claim against the operator in September 2021 in the London Circuit Commercial Court, arguing that Betfair should have recognized his gambling addiction and intervened.<\/p>\n<p>That case was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/betfair-had-no-duty-of-care-to-problem-gambler-who-blew-1-5m\/\">dismissed in November 2024<\/a> by High Court Judge Nigel Bird, who observed that \u201ca successful gambler should not be deprived of the fruits of his bet, but equally in my judgment, a losing gambler should not be able to escape the consequences of his decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout\">\n<p>Bird noted that Gibson had at no point informed Betfair that he had a gambling problem or attempted to self-exclude.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>On the contrary, he repeatedly told staff that his gambling was under control and he could absorb his losses because he was a multimillionaire.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Red Flags<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In the appellate court, Gibson\u2019s lawyer, Yash Kulkarni KC, argued Bird\u2019s decision had been wrong and that the sheer volume of bets his client was placing should have raised red flags with Betfair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr Gibson placed at least 20,000 individual bets in the six years prior to 22 January 2021, which is more than five per day,\u201d Kulkarni said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"main-blockquote\">\n<p>The judge ought to have gone on to find that, where a person appears likely to be gambling prolifically despite facing heavy losses, using money which appears likely to be at least in part from selling his business assets or loaning money against them, that person is likely to be a problem gambler,\u201d Kulkarni added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Kulkarni argued the evidence showed that Betfair either knew or could have known that Gibson was chasing losses, borrowing or selling items to gamble, and betting beyond what his after-tax income allowed.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018Appeared Level-Headed\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>But the three-judge appellate panel determined that, in fact, the evidence overwhelmingly showed that Gibson had \u201ckept his gambling problem to himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They noted that the plaintiff was someone who seemed \u201ccalm, level-headed\u201d and \u201cappeared to enjoy his gambling,\u201d according to the testimony of his VIP manager at Betfair.<\/p>\n<p>He was also someone who constantly insisted he could afford his losses when quizzed about the source of his funds by Betfair staff.<\/p>\n<p>The case was dismissed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/uk-property-tycoon-loses-appeal-over-1-5m-betfair-losses\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted on: December 9, 2025, 06:07h.\u00a0 Last updated on: December 9, 2025, 06:07h. Property tycoon loses appeal to reclaim major Betfair gambling losses. Court rules<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gambling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}