UK Property Tycoon Loses Appeal Over £1.5M Betfair Losses

• Property tycoon loses appeal to reclaim major Betfair gambling losses.
• Court rules Betfair not liable despite high-volume betting activity.
• Evidence showed gambler concealed issues and insisted he could afford losses.

A UK property tycoon who lost £1.5 million (US$2 million) wagering soccer games at Betfair has lost his bid to claw the money back from the betting exchange in London’s Court of Appeal.

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.

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.

That case was dismissed in November 2024 by High Court Judge Nigel Bird, who observed that “a 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.”

On the contrary, he repeatedly told staff that his gambling was under control and he could absorb his losses because he was a multimillionaire.

Red Flags

In the appellate court, Gibson’s lawyer, Yash Kulkarni KC, argued Bird’s decision had been wrong and that the sheer volume of bets his client was placing should have raised red flags with Betfair.

“Mr Gibson placed at least 20,000 individual bets in the six years prior to 22 January 2021, which is more than five per day,” Kulkarni said.

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,” Kulkarni added.

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.

‘Appeared Level-Headed’

But the three-judge appellate panel determined that, in fact, the evidence overwhelmingly showed that Gibson had “kept his gambling problem to himself.”

They noted that the plaintiff was someone who seemed “calm, level-headed” and “appeared to enjoy his gambling,” according to the testimony of his VIP manager at Betfair.

He was also someone who constantly insisted he could afford his losses when quizzed about the source of his funds by Betfair staff.

The case was dismissed.