James Robert Longley v PPB Entertainment Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mrs Justice Ellenbogen DBE |
| Judgment Date | 29 April 2022 |
| Neutral Citation | [2022] EWHC 977 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case No: QB-2020-000869 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
[2022] EWHC 977 (QB)
Mrs Justice Ellenbogen
Case No: QB-2020-000869
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mark James (instructed by Stewart-Moore Solicitors) for the Claimant
Kajetan Wandowicz (instructed by Paddy Power Legal Team) for the Defendants
Hearing dates: 28, 29 & 30 June 2021
APPROVED JUDGMENT
Introduction
In these proceedings, the Claimant, Mr Longley, claims the sum of £257,400, plus statutory interest, arising from an alleged breach of contract by the Maltese-registered Defendant companies, which operate the business of a bookmaker and are licensed to take bets from customers in Great Britain by the Gambling Commission. They trade, collectively, under the name ‘Paddy Power’, which it is convenient to use throughout this judgment.
The undisputed facts
The majority of the facts giving rise to these proceedings are not in dispute and are summarised below.
Mr Longley has an account, ‘jameslongley1’, with Paddy Power, enabling him to place telephone bets and to receive any winnings. On Saturday, 21 September 2019, Mr Longley telephoned Paddy Power's telephone betting line, seeking to place an ‘each way’ bet of £1,300 on a horse named Redemptive, at 16/1, in the 19:20 race at Wolverhampton (‘the Race’). In an each way bet, the total stake is double the notional value of the bet. Half of that total stake relates to a bet that the horse will win the race and half to a bet that it will place high in the race (usually, and in this case, within the first three places). If the horse wins, both halves of the bet succeed. If it places, only half of the bet is successful and half of the total stake is lost. The odds offered by bookmakers relate to a win. In this case, Paddy Power's odds for the placing part of the bet were 4/1.
The Dial-a-Bet operator to whom Mr Longley spoke was Ms Kendra Farrugia, who was based in Malta. The size of the stake was such that the computer system would not allow the bet to be placed without prior human approval. Ms Farrugia placed Mr Longley's call on hold whilst she contacted a trader in Ireland, Mr Sean Heffernan, whose role it was to decide whether to accept a bet which exceeded the system limit. Ms Farrugia informed Mr Heffernan that Mr Longley was seeking to place a bet of £13,000 each way. Mr Heffernan then sought authority to place such a bet from Mr Aidan McCarthy, Racing Risk Manager. Mr McCarthy granted authority, as requested by Mr Heffernan. Ms Farrugia then informed Mr Longley that she had cleared the bet with a trader. The two parts of their conversation ran as follows:
KF: Paddy Power Kendra speaking. Can I have your account number or username please?
JL: Yeah it's Jameslongley1.
KF: Right, and your name please?
JL: James Robert Longley.
KF: How can I help you Mr Longley?
JL: Er… Can I have… Wolverhampton… 7.20…
KF: Wolverhampton 7.20, yep.
JL: Thirteen hundred pounds each way please.
KF: Thirteen hundred each way. On what please?
JL: Redemptive
KF: Number 6, Redemptive at 16/1. Is that the horse you are looking for, Sir?
JL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
KF: Alright, so I'm getting max stake of 203, would you give me just a quick moment to call up a trader to see if I can get that cleared for you?
JL: Yeah, we need to up the stakes.
KF: Yeah I'm just going to have a look, OK?
JL: Yeah.
KF: Thank you. Please hold.
[…..]
KF: Hi, I got that cleared with a trader for you, if you like?
JL: Yeah, lovely.
KF: Alright, so that's going to be twenty-six thousand coming from Jameslongley1, is that correct?
JL: That's it, yeah
KF: Set for clearance
JL: Thank you
KF: And your bet is on fine Mr Longley
JL: Lovely
KF: Yeah that's on fine Sir
JL: Cheers, thank you.
The telephone call then ended. The conversations between (1) Ms Farrugia and Mr Longley, and (2) Ms Farrugia and Mr Heffernan, were recorded and the transcripts have been produced in evidence. I have listened to the audio-recordings of those conversations.
Paddy Power's spreadsheet of all bets placed by Mr Longley that day records that an each way bet of £13,000 was placed, at 17:36. Mr McCarthy arranged for some of the liability on the Race to be hedged. Following his discussion with Ms Farrugia, and before the Race, the Claimant checked, via the Paddy Power app, that £26,000 had been deducted from his account. Paddy Power's log-in records show that he successfully logged-in to his account at 18:08 on that day. Redemptive won the Race and £286,000 was credited, automatically, to Mr Longley's account, calculated as follows: (£13,000 x 16 = £208,000) + the stake of £13,000 + (£208,000 x 0.25 = £52,000) + the stake of £13,000.
At 19:51 that same day, Mr McCarthy wrote to members of the Racing Leadership Team, under the subject ‘Massive Overlay’:
‘I have been guilty of massively overlaying a horse this evening. A PP Customer James Longley…came on looking for a bet in the 7:20 Wolverhampton with Sean Heffernan £13k EW @ 16/1 Redemptive — Sean asked for my advice, I looked at the customers business for the day 16 bets & he seemed to be chasing for some reason the liability went out of my mind & I told Sean to accept the bet. The horse has won at a price of 12/1, I did put up some trades @ 19, 20 & 21 managing to get €1k matched @ 19.
I can only apologise for this massive error on my part & I cant explain why the liability didn't register with me.’ (sic)
By e-mail sent at 07:31 on Monday, 23 September 2019, Mr McCarthy asked Customer Services to listen to the call between Ms Farrugia and Mr Longley, chasing for a reply 24 minutes later. At 08:47, Mr Martin Hynes, of Customer Services, replied:
• Customer requests £1300 ( Thirteen Hundred) E/W on Redemptive in the 19:20 at Wolverhampton. Operator calls this back when taking note of the bet, correctly saying £1300 ( Thirteen Hundred) EW at this point.
• He got a max stake of 203 so operator advised she would call for clearance.
• The operator advised bet clearance the customer was looking for £13,000 ( Thirteen Thousand) E/W (This was an error but never rectified by the operator), This was cleared by Sean Heffernan after he looked into it.
• Operator goes back to the customer advising “I got that cleared from a trader for you” and says that it will be £26,000 coming from the a/c and was that ok, the customer confirmed that was correct & bet was placed.
• If you can let me know if you want any action taken on the a/c (sic)
At 08.50 that same day, Mr McCarthy asked the customer services team to amend the bet to £1,300 each way. The bet was subject to ‘resettlement’ at 09:15; the sum of £286,000 was removed from Mr Longley's account and replaced with a credit of £28,600. Mr Longley's claim is for the difference between those two sums, together with interest.
At around 15:44 on 23 September 2019, at his earlier request, Mr Longley had a telephone conversation with his Relationship Manager/VIP Relationship Executive, Mr Joseph Burns, whose note records:
‘Spoke with James [Longley]. Confirmed that he wanted 1.3K EW on the horse but when he saw it said 13K he decided to let it ride as he was confident. offered him 2K cash as a GWG 1 due to the inconvenience caused. asked me to sent it in an email to him and he'll think about it.’ (sic)
That offer was confirmed by e-mail of the same date, sent at 16:50.
At 17:10 that day, Mr Longley sent an e-mail to Mr Burns, requesting a copy of the telephone betting call. He repeated that request by text message sent at 12:08 on 24 September. Mr Burns replied stating that he had already requested a copy and that he would let Mr Longley know as soon as he had received a response. At 15:03, Mr Burns informed Mr Longley that he had managed to get his boss to increase the proposed settlement offer to £3,500 in cash. In the meantime, Mr Burns had received a copy of the digital recording of the telephone call and been advised to play it to Mr Longley over the telephone, rather than provide him with a copy. It was played to Mr Longley, Mr Burns believes ‘at least twice’, by prior arrangement, at 09:30 on 25 September. On 26 September, at 13:20, Mr Longley sent a text message to Mr Burns, stating, ‘The more I think about it the bet should be paid out but let me know what you come up with and we can discuss later.’ Shortly thereafter, Mr Burns telephoned Mr Longley to discuss Paddy Power's offer of settlement. Mr Longley told him that he had taken advice and was rejecting that offer. Mr Burns sent a summary of their discussion to certain individuals within Paddy Power at 13:34 that day:
‘Just spoken with the client and he has rejected the initial offer. After listening to the call he believes that even though he initially asked for 1.3k EW he is also heard saying that he wants to increase the stake. He has then said that he clearly agrees with the operator when asked if the £26K stake is OK. He also was on the account during the day and has seen the £26k bet in his account and was happy with it.
…’
On 26 September 2019, Mr Burns telephoned Mr Longley and informed him that Paddy Power's handling of the error had been correct, that it had been right to resettle the bet at £1,300 each way and that it would not be increasing its settlement offer. On 1 October 2019, he received a copy of Mr Longley's solicitors' letter to Paddy Power, after which he had no further dealings with Mr Longley.
Meanwhile, Paddy Power's senior management had instigated a human resources investigation into Mr McCarthy's conduct. By e-mail from Mr Séamus Hazlett, Head of Racing Risk, to a Ms Michelle Keegan, sent at 11:09 on 24 September 2019, Mr Hazlett observed that Paddy Power's ‘lay to lose’ appetite was £3,250 per...
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