What to make of the case of Luke Ashton who died by suicide after amassing debts in April 2021?
At an inquest held in Leicester, coroner Ivan Cartwright didn’t mince his words. “The operator did not intervene or interact with Mr Ashton in any meaningful way,” Cartwright said. “Betfair could have done more in the relevant period and should have done more in what I find was a crucial period between late January and April 2021. Opportunities were missed that could possibly have changed the outcome for Luke.”
Betfair was named as an ‘interested person’ in the inquest and it is understood that this is the first time a gambling company has been formally involved in an inquest in this way.
Commenting after the Coroner had released his verdict, Ashton’s widow Anne said the recording, for the first time ever, of gambling disorder as the cause of death is “very welcome and vindicates what I have argued all along, that gambling is destructive, destroys families and causes suicide”.
For its part, Betfair told the inquest that it could have done more to protect Ashton. The company said that an algorithm that was supposed to identity at-risk customers had failed to raise red flags.
Ashton sometimes placed more than 100 online bets a day and lost £5,000 in the month before his suicide, the inquest heard. He was also placing substantially larger bets during this time, it was told.
A spokesperson for Gambling With Lives, an anti-gambling lobby group set up by the parents of another person who committed suicide when known to be struggling with disordered gambling issues, said events such as Ashton’s death “cannot keep happening”.
“The Gambling Commission must remove gambling operators’ licences when they breach them, and the government must take its gambling reforms further and faster.
Ian Brown, in charge of Flutter UK and Ireland, said the company is “committed to doing the right thing and creating an environment for customers to enjoy our products in a safe and sustainable way”.
“Over the past three years we have made significant changes to our controls, including mandatory deposit limits for customers who return to our sites after a period of self-exclusion,” he added. “We hold ourselves to the absolute highest standards in the industry and we will, of course, incorporate additional learnings from this tragic case into our systems and processes.”
Dan Webster, a solicitor at Leigh Day, which represented Anne Ashton, said the coroner’s findings “raise wider issues for the gambling industry and the way it is regulated”.
“They present an important opportunity for lesson learning and come at a significant time following the recent publication of the Government’s plans for reform of gambling regulation,” he added. “It is vital that further steps are taken to ensure that individuals like Luke, who show clear signs of being at high risk of gambling harm, are not allowed to continue gambling without adequate intervention.”
Merry Varney, a partner at Leigh Day, said Coroners are “often reluctant” to investigate how someone came to their death.
“We hope the tireless campaigning by Annie, in the face of strong opposition from Betfair, will ensure not only that others are better aware and protected, but also that other coroners conduct similar investigations and inquests into other deaths where the bereaved family feel gambling has played a role.”
This is unlikely to be the last that is heard of this case. We are yet to hear what the Commission has to say on the subject, but given the substance pf previous regulatory settlements reached with others in the sector, it is likely to come down hard once again.
The fact Flutter has admitted that an algorithm was at fault in its dealing with Ashton is somewhat dismaying. In the recent Gambling Act Review White Paper, the government explicitly cited the potential for using technology to ensure consumers didn’t come to any harm when gambling online.
“Our vision for remote gambling is that the risks are mitigated, and that we maximise the use of technology and data to protect people in a targeted way at all stages of the customer journey,” it said.
These include:
- New account level protections to make sure operators are adequately protecting all online gamblers;
- Measures to make online products safer by design, including controls on structural characteristics like speed and stake;
- Steps to empower all online gambling customers to understand and control their gambling;
- A new approach to specific issues which are part of the changing landscape in the ever innovating online gambling environment.
The test of this new regime will be that examples such as the death of Luke Ashton don’t happen again. No disrespect to those with Gambling With Lives, but it is time the industry’s actions made the lobby group’s name all but obsolete.
