Gambling addition ‘contributed’ to death of father making 100 bets a day, inquest rules

Luke Ashton had hidden his gambling from his wife after becoming addicted during the Covid-19 lockdown

Luke Ashton was making over 100 bets a day in the weeks before his death (PA Media)

A gambling addiction contributed to the death of a “devoted” father, an inquest has concluded.

Luke Ashton, 40, had been making as many as 100 bets a day online and had previously accumulated £18,000 in debts, with betting company Betfair admitting they “should’ve done more” to protect him.

Before his death on 22 April 2021, Ashton had lost £5,000 in one month alone and there had been a clear “escalation” in his gambling activity, however his behaviour was not flagged as being high-risk.

His wife Annie told Leicester Coroner’s Court that her husband had been suffering from a gambling addiction that he did not understand and was causing him “pain and harm”.

After admitting to her in 2019 that he had taken out loans for his gambling, she helped him pay off his debts and suggested he see a counsellor.

She was under the impression her husband had stopped gambling and believed that he resumed online betting during the pandemic when he was furloughed from his full-time job.

Examinations of his phone records showed that he gambled early in the morning and late at night while she was in bed, with evidence he was placing larger bets in the weeks before he died in order to chase his losses.

Mr Ashton, pictured with his wife Annie, lost £5,000 in one month alone (Family handout)

Economist and gambling expert Professor David Forrest told the inquest that he believed Betfair had failed to identify that he was at risk of harm, despite the “red flags” in Ashton’s betting activity.

He added that he was “very surprised” that his gambling had not been spotted by Betfair’s algorithm and that the interventions had been “weak”.

By the time of his death, Ashton had been sent eight automated emails asking him to consider how much time he spent on the Betfair site, and asking whether he wanted to take a time out.

If Betfair’s machine-learning algorithm had correctly identified him as high risk, a number of further steps would have been taken, including a phone assessment or a forced ban on his account.

Richard Clarke, the managing director of Betfair’s parent company Flutter, admitted that the firm could have done more at the time and that their model had failed to identify Mr Ashton as a high-risk customer.

“Looking at Luke’s activity in March 2021, it does look like we should’ve done more,” he said. “Looking at the tragic outcome we have here, we would have loved to have done more. Things have changed a lot since then.”

A number of changes have been implemented since 2021, including a strict monthly net deposit limit for customers who return from self-exclusion, as well as financial vulnerability checks.

Following criticism from Dr Forrest that Betafair’s threshold for identifying harm was too high, Philip Kolvin KC, representing Flutter, said lowering the threshold could have placed an “unmanageable” load on the company.

While accepting changes have now been made to prevent a customer in similar circumstances from repeating Ashton’s pattern of betting, Betfair says it is confident the company complied with the rules and the regulatory framework.

In a report on his death, addiction specialist Professor Clare Gerade said that Ashton was suffering with a “longstanding and pervasive gambling disorder” and not depression.

On the day before his body was discovered at a property in South Yorkshire, he had informed his wife he was travelling to Scotland for delivery work and turned off his mobile phone.

Mrs Ashton contacted the police the following day after his colleagues confirmed he had not been asked to go to Scotland, and he was traced to an AirBnb where he was found dead.

In a tribute to her husband, Mrs Ashton said: “Luke was a bright, happy and bubbly person, who easily made friends. I first met Luke in 1992, in secondary school, and even then, he had an intelligent, witty sense of humour with a mesmerising, cheeky, unforgettable giggle.”

She added: “Our children wanted for nothing, he was a real rock to us all, but in reality, he masked his own pain, to protect us from what he was going through.’’

Coroner Ivan Cartwright came to a narrative conclusion that Mr Ashton died as a result of his own actions.