The wife of a Leicester man who took his own life after racking up gambling debts of £18,000 has launched legal action against the Gambling Commission. Annie Ashton claims the regulator is not doing enough to protect gamblers.

Annie’s husband Luke, who died aged 40 in 2021, is seeking the green light at the High Court to challenge the commission’s decision not to take regulatory action against gambling firm Betfair. A coroner had previously found that a gambling disorder contributed to Luke’s death.

The father-of-two’s inquest heard that he had become “consumed” by gambling in the last weeks of his life, but that he was not deemed a problem gambler. In 2024, the commission twice declined to take regulatory action against Betfair, with Mrs Ashton telling the PA news agency that she did not believe the commission “is doing anything to protect customers” and that she would “continue fighting it until something is done”.

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She said: “I didn’t think there would be anyone else after [Luke’s death], and then the reality is there is another family, and you’re meeting another family where someone has died from gambling-related suicide, you are hearing stories that operators were misbehaving and the things that they have gone through. The Gambling Commission are part of that problem because what they should have done is made this so that people were aware of what is happening.”

She added: “This is a government body. They should have been protecting, they should have been regulating, they should be making sure that customers are safe, they should be regulating with the view to enforcing if necessary, and they are not doing their job.”

Mr Ashton’s inquest in June 2023 was believed to be the first in the UK in which a gambling company had been listed as an Interested Person in the proceedings. It emerged that Luke sometimes gambled more than 100 times a day, with his addiction described as “pervasive” by a medical expert, but he was not deemed a problem gambler.

Mr Ashton made no disclosures about the toll the problem was taking on his mental health before taking his own life in South Yorkshire on Thursday, April 22, 2021.

Following the inquest, area coroner Ivan Cartwright said he remained concerned that Betfair and its parent company Flutter “did not take any measures” to curb Mr Ashton’s gambling. He also found that player protection tools “were and are inadequate to protect a person such as Mr Ashton”.

Law firm Leigh Day, which is representing Mrs Ashton in the legal challenge, said that the commission reviewed the inquest findings but decided against taking regulatory action in March last year, in part due to issues already being addressed while Betfair was in special measures between January and June 2021. It later reconsidered its decision but in November 2024 again decided not to take regulatory action, partly because it was unclear when changes were made in 2021 and “that it was likely to be difficult to investigate these issues now, given the passage of time”, Leigh Day said.

Mrs Ashton, who works part-time at a gambling harm charity while studying for a PhD, said she hoped for “public accountability” through the legal case. She said: “I don’t think that Betfair has felt what it should have felt as regards accountability. They have not had the sanctions that they should have had.

“The fact there has been no regulatory sanction, or any public announcement on their behalf, or any naming and shaming, which there should have been, it feels like the lesson that they should have learned has been missed. For me, that is potentially quite frustrating, but also it is a serious concern as if operators are not being called out for their bad behaviour, then they are not deterred from doing it again.”

A spokesperson for the Gambling Commission said: “With legal proceedings in process we are limited in what we can say. However, we vigorously disagree with any claims we have failed to adequately regulate operators or protect people from harm.

“We take robust action against gambling businesses. In the last four years, we have taken action against 56 operators who have paid out £105 million for failing to protect consumers. Just last week we fined an operator £98,400 for failing to check on the welfare of a customer who spent £2,000 over two days. We understand this is a sensitive matter and our condolences go to Mrs Ashton.”

A Betfair spokesperson said: “We hold ourselves to the highest standards in the industry and we reiterate our sincere condolences to Mrs Ashton and her family over this tragic case. We have made a number of improvements to our player protections since early 2021. Unfortunately, due to live legal proceedings we are unable to comment any further at this time.”

Anyone who needs support can call Samaritans free of charge on 116 123, email [email protected], or visit the Samaritans website.

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