Australian millionaire takes bookmaker to court

Winton Veall Takes bookmaker to Court

An Australian millionaire wants a bookmaker to pay him back his lost money. He is taking bookmaker TopSport to court in Australia, accusing the company of repeatedly taking advantage of him while he was drunk. He gambled away up to A$22,500 a night.

Winton Veall, a millionaire from Melbourne, is someone who usually doesn’t shy away from big bets. Yet he is suing Australian sports bookmaker TopSport over bets made.

The millionaire claims to have made a series of bets with TopSport between November 2016 and May 2019 that caused him psychological damage. For this, he is now demanding compensation.

Veall, himself a former bookmaker, has filed a claim in the Queensland Supreme Court for more than A$750,000 against Merlehan Bookmaking Pty Ltd, the parent company of TopSport.

Australian millionaire made thousands of bets

The 70-year-old millionaire allegedly placed thousands of bets over nearly three years on cricket, dog and horse racing, rugby, tennis, Australian football, and boxing matches. This while TopSport knew that Veal was repeatedly in a drunken state. These bets should therefore never have been taken, according to Veall.

He claims that he had been barred from betting on dog and horse races. Nevertheless, the bookmaker took Veall’s bets. The amounts involved ranged from a minimum of A$500 to sometimes tens of thousands of Australian dollars.

In a sworn statement, Tristan Merlehan, CEO of Merlehan Bookmaking, said that he personally spoke to the Australian millionaire on the phone to take his bets. Veall said the bookmaker acknowledged that he was “intoxicated” in his claim.

Merlehan claims he did nothing wrong and that the company acted following the license agreement.

Sportsbook must hand over recordings and reports

TopSport has since received a court order to hand over phone recordings and all records of Veall’s bets. This information and any additional documentation will be presented to the court at a hearing on Thursday, 21 April.

In 2020, a gambler in Australia was already successful in a court case against a bookmaker. The gambler had signed up for a self-exclusion system. However, Sportsbet, the provider of the games of chance, did not have a working plan for self-exclusion. Therefore, the man could still play on the website. The court ordered the company to pay back A$93,000, which was equal to the loss suffered by the gambler.