Playboy's Big Gamble
In the world of high stakes gambling with people betting thousands of pounds within minutes extra care has to be taken to clamp down on cheaters.
Last year we saw world class poker player Phil Ivey lose his battle in the Supreme Court in a case that changed the way that we look at criminal law. For my upcoming course on employment law I talk about a case where it is held that a higher level of skill is expected from security guards who work in casinos.
This week’s episode of the podcast looks at a fascinating case where the bettor in question actually succeeds in his deception and disappears with more than £400,000. He managed to do so because the bank that was meant to provide a credit reference made a mistake and didn’t realise that although the man at the casino did indeed have a bank account there wasn’t any money in it!
At first glance this therefore looks like a straightforward negligence claim but unfortunately for Playboy things were not so simple. In order to protect the privacy of their patrons the credit reference was carried out through a third party called Burlington and so this meant that the bank didn’t actually no the purpose of the check or, to any great degree of accuracy, the extent of their own liability.
Should this matter and how should courts treat these cases of pure economic loss in the light of the landmark case of Hedley Byrne?
Tune in to the episode to hear me discuss this and other issues.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2018-uksc-43/
Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/uk-law-weekly/id1137316725?mt=2