Partner Mental Illness and Gambling - Please Help

Hi tk28,

I serendipitously stumbled upon the following information online, and it reminded me of your unfortunate situation. In exceptional circumstances, your partner might have a case in terms of writing off the debts of £18,000 under The Mental Capacity Act. See page 25 in the PDF document at the following link: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/images/attachment/mentalhealthguide.pdf .

Best wishes.

Hi Richard,

I really need your advice here and would like to explain my situation with problem gambling.

I lost 100k with betway between nov 2017 and nov 2018 over a period of 12 months.I was so addicted and lost my senses and spent all my savings and took loans from others and credit cards and now I end up with 60k in debts which ruined my complete life and I am always in depressed zone.

I know people say it's your responsibility and I agree it's my fault but unfortunately when u enter into addiction zone your brain stops working and I had this anxiety issues.I now completely stopped betting and will.never do it in my lifetime.

So this is how it started.I bet on tennis and the movement I opened account with betway within a month I was moved to vip zone and was oowed with bonuses and tickets to football and tennis live matches.I almost lost 8k to 10k a month average and I used to lie to friends and borrow money for betting needs.I used to bet with money and loss in first 10 days of the month and used to request or plead for bonuses all the time with my vip managers.they used to send me offers saying deposit 2000 and bonus 2000 and I used to always do that.I used to login 8 hours a day and always plead for bonus which is a clear sign of problem gambling which they ignored.I even said in 3 occasions that I lost all my bets and have no money and can you please give bonuses but still they never ever asked me about my income and affordability. 

I have seen betway paid a huge fine of 11.8 million for the period 2015 to nov 2017 in March 2020 which is exactly for the same reason and the way they oowed vip customers.They lied to gambling commission saying they had this system and policy failures from April 2015 to nov 2017 but I lost all my money from nov 2017 to nov 2018 and I am sure if gambling commission digs further they will find until 2020 they ignored responsible gambling code.

I raised a complaint with betway about responsible gambling and the way they ignored all red flags and allowed me to bet despite me showing all signs of problem gambling. I have all the emails as proof from there vip managers and and I can see gambling commission as fined them exactly for the same reason.

It's been 1 month now and betway has come back to me asking for paylsips p60s and my bank statements during the period which is strange as I expect them to have these details before I raise a complaint for refund. I am not sure how long will they take and what is the outcome but if the outcome is negative I will forward and send all my mail details to daily mail and gambling commission and will look into legally with my solicitor.

I know betway are rich and can go with best solicitors but they are already scrutinised and on radar of gambling commission with bad reputation and I hope my case can still bring into limelight about 100s of customers who are ignored by betway simplify for there business needs.

I would request people not to comment saying it's completely your fault bla bla.I know it's my fault and I am over it now but that's what addiction means .people tend to loose there senses which I did during that time.

Richard any suggestions how to handle the complain will be much appreciated.If I get my money back my life will be back to normal which I lost .

Posted by: EKJR

tk28 wrote:

Hi, my partner has run into a big problem, he is not mentally well and is severely depressed, he has been struggling with depression for quite a few years and this has caused him to gamble on and off but i have only just found out. Before christmas he got a lot worse, he is only 29 and has already lost both his mum from cancer and his dad from a heart attack and has no other family around. Since the start of this year he has been to his GP 3 times and is on prescription anti depressants from the doctor, with the dose recently being doubled and i did not realise how unwell he was as we live seperately. A few days ago not in sane mind he logged onto Betway roulette on his phone and managed to lose £40,000 in the space of 45 minutes. There were no safe guards put in place by them or his bank (Halifax) and he lost every penny he had as well as all the money he got from a loan of £18,00 that was for our deposit on a houseand is now suicidal, he is self employed but has not been to work for over a month due to his depression but does not claim any benefits of any kind. I was wondering how this has been allowed to happen and where I stand on even the slightest possibility of recovering the money as he is mentally sick and is in need of help, he does not even remember making the excess deposits and said he did not have any idea what he was doing until it was too late. Since i found out he has also been on suicide watch and has been contacted by the police as he went missing for around 10 hours and was found by a railway track. This is absolutely devestating for me to watch and i'm out of my mind desperate to help him, I called Betway a few days ago and they were not very helpful, after pleading and pleading with them to help me they agreed that it shouldn't have been allowed to happen and have said it has been escalated to the welfare department, do you think there is any chance of this getting resolved? Sorry to bother everyone but I am just out of my mind with worry and cannot sleep or eat! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, any help and advice is greatly appreciated.

As has been said above, utilise the complaints procedure fully. If that doesn't work the get IBAS and GC involved. They have a duty of care and allowing £40k deposits and losses within 45 minutes is not great. However, be warned, the GC will initially say that this wouldn't have been enough time to do due diligence on an individual to take action on it. The GC can only advise and cant help you get your money back but a lot of the operators do not want to get embroidled in conversations with them which they need to make public. It will be a long road but you may need to go down a legal route to recover some of it, thats what I am doing at the moment. Get him to self exclude from everywhere in the meantime. I found that joining as many as possible and self excluding straight away works best.

Hi did you manage to recover any and if so how long did it take