ShareA 40-year-old man who killed himself after racking up huge gambling debts was described as a “low risk” customer by Betfair at an inquest this week.
Luke Ashton, from Leicester, died in April 2021 after building up gambling debts of ÂŁ18,000 on Betfair, a Flutter UKI-owned betting site.
His wife told the official hearing into his death that he committed suicide after relapsing into gambling addiction following Betfair offering him a free bet.
The court inquest heard that the number of online bets that Mr Ashton placed in the month before his death spiked sharply, as did the value of the bets.
Having previously chosen to “self-exclude” himself on three separate occasions (in 2013, 2014 and 2016) Mr Ashton’s return to gambling saw him place 1,229 bets in March 2021.
On one day alone that month, he deposited £2,500. Lawyers for Mr Ashton's family claim that Betfair ought to have spotted his “erratic” betting – in effect, chasing his losses – and intervened.
However, Richard Clarke, the MD of customer relations for Flutter UKI, told the court in Leicester Town Hall that the firm's algorithm found nothing to warrant human intervention.
Mr Clarke explained that the computer model used by Betfair analysed 277 elements of customer betting on a daily basis in order to spot problem gamblers. Those detected would then be contacted via telephone by the company’s player protection team.
He stated that Mr Ashton’s betting patterns had not been unusual before he died, and therefore not flagged by their systems for more serious action. Mr Ashton was, however, sent eight automated and generic “awareness” emails by Betfair.
The inquest also heard from Mr. Clarke that Mr Ashton wagered almost exclusively using the Betfair Exchange, which allows customers to bet against each other.
He revealed that Mr Ashton’s £2,500 deposit on March 5th 2021 was “not unusual” for Betfair Exchange users, with “thousands of customers” wagering higher amounts.
Mr Clarke told the hearing: “The challenge in Luke's case was trying to see him from the crowd of customers who are very savvy.”
Jesse Nicholls, representing the Ashton family, read from a report prepared for the coroner by independent expert and economist, Professor David Forrest.
Mr Nicholls said: “His conclusion was Betfair should have identified Luke as at risk of gambling harm and taken more and stronger steps to make him safe particularly in that period of early 2021.”
When asked if he felt the company should have done more, Mr Clarke responded: “We have looked very carefully at the actions we took and we are confident we met the regulatory standard at the time."
“As a company, obviously looking at the tragic outcome here, I would love to have done more.”
He added that Betfair had since introduced further safeguards, including deposit limits from customers returning from self-exclusion periods and financial vulnerability checks.
The inquest continues.
