Betfair urged to hand tens of thousands to victim of gambling fraudster | Gambling

Betfair is under pressure to hand over tens of thousands of pounds to the victim of a fraudster and gambling addict after appearing to miss multiple opportunities to stop its “VIP” customer from betting with stolen money.

Andrew Morford, a former finance executive, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence on Wednesday after admitting £340,000 fraud against his former employer between May 2019 and February 2024.

In handing down the sentence, Judge Silas Reid described Morford’s gambling addiction, which caused him to lose more than £1 million on the Betfair platform, as a “very significant mitigating factor”.

The betting exchange, which is part of £28bn global gambling company Flutter Entertainment, appears to have missed signs that Morford was in decline and failed to act even after an employee raised concerns internally, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Now Morford’s former employer and a campaign group that works with offending gambling addicts are calling on Betfair to hand over the money he won from him.

Morford started using Betfair in 2005 and asked the company to ban him from gambling on multiple occasions, including requesting a permanent ban in 2008.

However, he was allowed to gamble again after opening an account as “Andy” instead of “Andrew”.

He removed himself from this second account in 2010 but reversed his decision in 2012 and lost a net £659,000 in five years, mostly in football and horse racing.

His gambling was so heavy that he was rewarded with VIP status, a seemingly prestigious label that typically denotes someone who loses a lot of money.

He was appointed a “VIP manager” who offered him free accommodation at cricket matches, the Cheltenham festival and Ascot, according to internal documents listing his interactions with members of staff.

One such engagement was labeled “whaler” in the records; This was an apparent reference to the industry slang term “whale”, which describes gamblers who have suffered huge losses.

Betfair eventually closed Morford’s account in 2017 due to what a spokesperson described as “concerns about his betting activities”.

But Morford opened an account in his father Gordon’s name and lost more than £600,000, including more than £120,000 in a five-month period in 2018.

Despite the size of the losses, Betfair labeled the account as “low end of medium risk” in internal documents.

Betfair is a betting exchange rather than a bookmaker; This means Morford loses money to fellow gamblers who take the other side of his bets.

However, the company receives a commission from the winning side of each bet. Betting records show Betfair may have raked in £200,000 from bets Morford lost between 2018 and 2024; This overlaps significantly with the fraud period.

Internal documents show Betfair missed multiple opportunities to detect that Morford was using his father’s account.

In August 2022, he signed an email to “Gordon’s” VIP manager using his own name.

He then made the same mistake in March 2023. This time, an employee searched the company’s records to find Morford’s history of self-exclusion.

“I have not made any transactions or made any changes to the customer account, but I feel it is necessary to share my concerns with you as there is evidence that this customer has circumvented exclusion in the past,” they said.

Despite this, no precautions were taken at that time.

Morford would deposit more than £550,000 and lose tens of thousands of pounds before Betfair closed his account due to concerns over his identity.

His employer, the charitable housing organization Co-operative Development Services (CDS), was exposed in 2024 for his fraud.

CDS brought a successful civil claim against Morford for £575,000; He paid part of the case using his £100,000 pension and a 50% share of the £110,000 house he shares with his wife and daughter.

SpreadEx, another gambling company where Morford lost money, agreed to provide a further £45,000 to CDS.

Betfair’s refusal so far to help pay compensation has raised questions about whether the gambling firm should keep the commission it receives.

“Sadly Andrew Morford’s case is not an isolated case,” said Jacqui Bell, director of criminal justice services at GamLearn, a charity that works with offending gambling addicts.

“We support more than 50 people in almost identical situations.”

He said evidence gathered by the charity showed “repeated failures by UK licensed operators and the retention of significant losses despite clear evidence of the harm of gambling”.

In the victim statement submitted to the court, it was seen that CDS targeted gambling operators, including Betfair. He said several gambling companies were “profiting significantly from this” and questioned whether they were doing enough to prevent it.

Betfair hinted it would consider giving Morford money to his victim, saying: “We have an established disposal process and this case will be subject to criminal proceedings once they are completed.”

A spokesman added that Betfair takes player safety seriously and complies with its regulatory obligations, and has passed information about Morford’s situation to the Gambling Commission.

The company said Morford “impersonated his father in multiple conversations with our teams in which he assured us that he was in control of his spending, including safer gambling interactions, and provided documents in his father’s name.”