Graham Calvert's Last Bet?

I suppose it was inevitable that this case would reach the Court of Appeal. After all, Mr Calvert is a big gambler.

He may yet enter the ultimate casino, the House of Lords. This is the UK equivalent of the US Supreme Court. If he loses there, he has one further roll of the dice in the European Court of Justice. Watch this space!

What is it about?

Mr Calvert was a compulsive gambler (also a greyhound trainer) and William Hill (a big bookmaker in the UK) accepted his bets.

Mr Calvert said they should not have done so. He had made them fully aware that he was a danger to himself and they should have refused his bets.

Mr Calvert failed to establish a general duty of care on the part of bookmakers "to protect problem gamblers from the consequences of their compulsive problems."

This was not appealed.

He had won below on the basis of something "John" said to him:

Mr Calvert succeeded before the judge on his narrower case that, on the particular facts, William Hill, through John, assumed responsibility to do what John said in the telephone conversation they would do, and that William Hill were in breach of that duty in failing to implement the agreement. The judge found that William Hill had assumed this responsibility and that they were accordingly in breach of duty.

BUT he did not win any compensation.

This was an entirely pyrrhic victory then and this was because Mr Calvert would "probably have ruined himself anyway by betting with one or more of that bookmaker's competitors."

The Appeal

Mr Calvert lost.

Comment

Well, what did he expect? Oh, I forgot, he is a compulsive gambler. Exacttly the kind of client lawyers need in hard times?