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Bet365, being sued for refusing to pay out more than £1 million on a student's winning bet, are mounting a legal bid to have part of her action struck out, the High Court heard on Friday.
Counsel for the bookmaker confirmed a pre-trial application will be made in the lawsuit brought in Belfast by Megan McCann.
McCann, who lives near the city, claims she is owed £1,009,960 in winnings.
She was said to be 19 when she staked almost £25,000 on 12 horses running in four races in June 2016. But bet365 refused to pay out, believing her stake was supplied by a third party, in breach of its terms and conditions.
In a writ issued against bet365's parent company, McCann alleges breach of contract and seeks damages in excess of £1m.
Although proceedings are still at an early stage, the case came before a court for the first time on Friday.
Counsel for bet365, Peter Hopkins, revealed an attempt will be made to have the case against the firm reduced before it reaches trial. He told a High Court Master: "The application [will be] to strike out part of the statement of claim."
No further details about the action or the legal move were disclosed during the brief hearing. The case is due back in court in March to fix a date for hearing the application.
Counsel for the bookmaker confirmed a pre-trial application will be made in the lawsuit brought in Belfast by Megan McCann.
McCann, who lives near the city, claims she is owed £1,009,960 in winnings.
She was said to be 19 when she staked almost £25,000 on 12 horses running in four races in June 2016. But bet365 refused to pay out, believing her stake was supplied by a third party, in breach of its terms and conditions.
In a writ issued against bet365's parent company, McCann alleges breach of contract and seeks damages in excess of £1m.
Although proceedings are still at an early stage, the case came before a court for the first time on Friday.
Counsel for bet365, Peter Hopkins, revealed an attempt will be made to have the case against the firm reduced before it reaches trial. He told a High Court Master: "The application [will be] to strike out part of the statement of claim."
No further details about the action or the legal move were disclosed during the brief hearing. The case is due back in court in March to fix a date for hearing the application.
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If it is true the student was putting on for a Paddy Power trader, perhaps the judge should limit to the award to as much as PP would have accepted.
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Surely the question the Judge must ask is would B365 have refunded the £25k stake had the bet lost and we all know the answer to that, which obviously means the Punter was in a No-Win position.
A bet is only a bet provided there is a possibility of winning! Not for the first time B365 is bringing bookmaking into disrepute! |
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Is that a legal opinion?
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where does the PP trader rumour come from? True or not they should have decided at the time who the bet was for.
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Yes, they should but from time immemorial it has been standard operating procedure for bookies to take a bet, wait till the result, and then decide whether they wanted to lay it in the first place. I'd like to see that change (although there would be downsides for punters) and also the palpable error rule abolished so bookies had to check their prices before putting them online.
But does any of that have any bearing on this case so far as the law is concerned? |
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I don't know the law, Ramruma. But I'd guess those deciding won't understand what's going on anyway. Palpable error is understandable, imo. A worse scenario for punters could be if they really have to prove it's their own account.
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Why do you think they won't know what's going on anyway? This won't be the first time they will have been asked to interpret a contract dispute.
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well all frauds committed in racing now only go via the BHA and the police are never involved because they got their fingers burnt with Fallon et al, where they definitely didn't seem to understand racing terminology or anything else.
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What is interesting here, for me anyway, is the fact that 365 believe the stake was provided by a third party which they say breaches their T&C's. From a legal perspective, is the onus on the woman to prove her innocence, or is it on 365 to prove her guilt? If the answer is the latter, I wouldn't have thought 365 have got a leg to stand on.
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my uncle bob gave me £10 to stick on a horse yesterday with my 365 account. it lost, but they wouldn't have paid out anyway as the stake was provided by a third party.
when do i get bobs £10 back ? |
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i must have hundreds to come back from grand national bets for family
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It's a claim for breach of contract though. Whether it's a gambling contract, an insurance contract or a contract for selling a car the law for breach of contract won't change.
Kemoh the burden of proof is on the woman because she is the one taking them to court for breach of contract. |
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I understand what you're saying SD, makes sense
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It's a civil dispute, so a judge would have to be 51% in her favour and she wins. Be interesting to see how this pans out, although I very much doubt it'll ever reach a full hearing.
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and no doubt they intend to keep the stake money even though the bet won, was cleared by PTL and all authorisations were green and any red flags raised by the substantial wager were ignored or cleared. In laymans terms if they had refused the wager on bet placement then there is no issue. They are supposed to operate KYC criteria and accepting clever wagers of this size proves they were happy she was a mug operating a losing account. Its the hypocrisy that sticks in the craw. They would be better off employing capable clued up traders. GREEDY isn't strong enough to describe Denise Coates, didn't she pay herself a £200 million dividend this year? Paying up and tightening the loopholes and redesigning their KYC criteria was surely the way forward.
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Obviously Bang at it ,But never the less there are so many Syndicates /Betting groups these days where do they draw the
Line? PAY THE WOMAN ,all said and done they bet winners they were not holding shops up . |
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to their owners this far worse than an old fashioned stick up, they don't care about any human collateral and from the shops its probably £6k max. Hitting them for a million by being cute enough to think up a perm. fund it and be lucky enough the results go the right way is just damned 'criminal and diabolical' in their eyes.
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"Miss McCann, who lives near Belfast, claims that she is owed £1,009,960 by bet365, which was co-founded and run by Denise Coates, who is said to be worth £3.2 billion."
The world can't be fixed. As time goes on it only gets nastier and greedier. |
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@KeMoH -- What is interesting here, for me anyway, is the fact that 365 believe the stake was provided by a third party which they say breaches their T&C's. From a legal perspective, is the onus on the woman to prove her innocence, or is it on 365 to prove her guilt? If the answer is the latter, I wouldn't have thought 365 have got a leg to stand on.
There were reports when this first came up that the woman would argue the third party clause should not apply. I am also not a lawyer but I suspect if there is a third party and if said third party is in the game, then the Phil Ivey casino cheating decision would not help her, insofar as it said different standards applied for professionals than for ordinary consumers, but we shall see. As I said, I'm not a lawyer so would welcome the opinion of anyone who is. |
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I’m praying 365 win this case , and I fancy them very strongly. They have cone this far, and got all this bad publicity, there is no way that they are backing down and settling now.
Ramruma is bang on the money here, and I’m hoping it goes to court, they get fukk all and they have to pay hundreds of thousands of costs as well. |
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jimeen - why would you prey that 365 wins the case? All 365 had to do was void the bet as soon as it was placed and there probably wouldn't have been any arguments, but no they wanted to wait to see the result(s) and hope they would keep any losses, knowing they would go down the void route if it copped. Just on that basis I hope they lose.
If they win due to "third party payments" being a breach of their T&Cs, I would like to know what is lawful when it comes to a Credit Card paying for bets - is that a "third party payment" as it certainly isn't the customers own money? What difference does it make if you borrow from a friend or a credit card? Would be funny if they won and actually opened up the door for a PPI type claim! |
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If 365 win they could be opening a can of worms, how many people have put a bet on for someone else on their account. Would this leave us all able to claim that money back.
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Magic Daps , I’m praying 365 win because I believe Ramruma is on the money here as regards the truth. Ask Star Sports what they think of these reptiles, and it’s not as if this was a one off, you can be certain it wasn’t the first time attempting to go under the radar.
365 are not digging their heels in for no reason, this is no ordinary case. |
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just to spice things up if your restricted,barred from betting with certain companies,but try your luck when a price is way out of line with other bookies and your bet is accepted,are they duty,legaly bound to pay you out if you win or can they claim the bet was taken in error as your restricted,barred etc,
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Ask Star Sports what they think of these reptiles - you mean the book that will lay you what you want at 6/4 as long as it is 2/1 on here, and if you have a winner or 2 you are still long gone! Why are punters reptiles for wanting to place a bet in your opinion?
I am not saying it is a one off, I am also not seeing how they are trying to go under the radar placing a 25k bet either. My point is the bet was accepted and 365 knew it would have been placed straight away due to the stake size, all they had to do was void it straight away - then there is no issue and I doubt any complaints either from the punter. What we have is someone placing a bet and it gets accepted, and the book knows they will either void it if it wins, or keep the money if it loses. That is not right whichever way you look at it surely. |
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then the Phil Ivey casino cheating decision would not help her, insofar as it said different standards applied for professionals than for ordinary consumers,
That decision had nothing to do with professionals/consumers. You might be getting mixed up with the Rangers relegated bet with Corals where the judge ruled (wrongly imo) that the punter wasn't a consumer as he was a former bookmaker. Also that was a Scottish case. |
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The poor girl...if her bet went down she loses 25k...if bet hits she gets nothing....bet was accepted..PAY OUT.
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Should never of accepted the bet and like it's already been said would they of returned the stake if the bet went down bookmakers want it both ways and if they win this case it stinks to high heaven
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The whole case will hinge on where the 18 year old student states the £25k stake came from end of.
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"If 365 win they could be opening a can of worms, how many people have put a bet on for someone else on their account. Would this leave us all able to claim that money back."
This a pretty daft arguement. There is a big difference between putting a bet on with a credit card or sticking your wife's tenner on for the sake of convenience and paying someone unconnected you to set up an account for you to fund and place bets to get around the fact that they would not allow you to set up and bet on your own account. The court can differentiate between different scenarios. If I took out an insurance policy on my vehicle saying I only drove 3,000 miles a year and I knew I'd driven 100,000 miles the last few years and I likely would again a court is highly likely to find me in breach pf contract and side with the insurance company on not paying out. That doesn't mean they are saying everybody who has ever underestimated their mileage and driven over the estimated mileage would be in breach of contract for their policies. And it certainly doesn't mean they would all be entitled to a refund. |
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carrot....they werent bothered where the money came from when they accepted the bet.
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The insurance analogy doesn't hold water though, you haven't flagged up anything to them in the first place though, so yes they will be well within their rights to void your insurance after you try and claim etc.
This bet would have been flagged up instantly and they could have voided it instantly, instead they wait to see if there is a payout before voiding it. If they didn't want to lay the bet they could have easily chose not to before a runner even ran, but they wanted it both ways and be in a no lose situation. Lose nothing by voiding it or keep the 25k stake or part of it if it doesn't cop. They let the bet run so should payout imo. |
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She's a million to get paid .
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how do we no they didn't lay the bet off at a certain point and collected so by winning the case 365 would be copping twice
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It certainly does. The analogy points out clearly how a court could differentiate between different scenarios whereby the fact that a person is in breach of contract by deliberately setting out to deceive the other party it doesn't follow that anyone who has maybe tecnically breached the conditions because of slight error will also be or for the sake of convenience etc will also be.
The flagging doesn't effect whether there was a breach of contract though. I doubt an argument of yes I was clearly in breach of contract and I knew I was in breach of contract but they should have noticed my breach of contract earlier will get much sympathy from a court. |
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Agree Joe. i can't see any way she gets paid if the circumstances are as 365 say i.e she was basically being paid by a 3rd party to set up a dummy account for them to use.
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does anyone know if the a/c had been used before,surely thats of relevance to the case.
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understand 365 have culled a lot of accounts recently. not sure if connected to this ...
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