Betfair is under pressure to hand tens of thousands of pounds to the victim of a fraudster and gambling addict, after appearing to miss multiple opportunities to stop the \u201cVIP\u201d customer betting with stolen money.<\/p>\n
Andrew Morford, a former finance manager, was given a two-year suspended sentence on Wednesday, after admitting a \u00a3340,000 fraud against his former employer, carried out between May 2019 and February 2024.<\/p>\n
In sentencing remarks, Judge Silas Reid described Morford\u2019s gambling addiction, which led to him losing more than \u00a31m on Betfair\u2019s platform, as a \u201cvery significant mitigation factor\u201d.<\/p>\n
The betting exchange, part of the \u00a328bn global gambling corporation Flutter Entertainment, appears to have overlooked signs of Morford\u2019s downward spiral, according to documents seen by the Guardian, failing to act even after a staff member raised concerns internally.<\/p>\n
Now, Morford\u2019s former employer and a campaign group that works with gambling addicts who commit crimes are calling on Betfair to hand over the money it made from him.<\/p>\n
Morford began using Betfair in 2005 and asked the company to bar him from gambling with it on several occasions, including a request for a permanent exclusion in 2008.<\/p>\n
However, he was allowed to gamble again after opening an account as \u201cAndy\u201d instead of \u201cAndrew\u201d.<\/p>\n
He self-excluded from this second account in 2010 but reversed the decision in 2012, going on to lose a net \u00a3659,000 over five years, mostly on football and horse racing.<\/p>\n
His gambling was so heavy that he was rewarded with the status of VIP, a seemingly prestigious label that typically refers to someone who loses a lot of money.<\/p>\n
Morford was assigned a \u2018VIP manager\u2019 who offered free hospitality at the Cheltenham festival and other events. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
He was assigned a \u201cVIP manager\u201d who offered free hospitality at cricket matches, the Cheltenham festival and Ascot, according to internal company documents listing his interactions with staff members.<\/p>\n
One such engagement was labelled \u201cwhale catcher\u201d in the records, an apparent reference to the industry slang term \u201cwhale\u201d, describing gamblers who rack up big losses.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Betfair closed Morford\u2019s account in 2017 because of what a spokesperson described as \u201cconcerns about his betting activity\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Morford simply opened an account in the name of his father, Gordon, going on to lose more than \u00a3600,000, including more than \u00a3120,000 in one five-month period of 2018.<\/p>\n
Despite the scale of the losses, Betfair labelled the account as the \u201clow end of medium risk\u201d in internal documents.<\/p>\n
Betfair is a betting exchange rather than a bookmaker, meaning Morford lost money to fellow gamblers who took the other side of his bets.<\/p>\n
But the company takes a commission from the winning party on each bet. Betting records indicate Betfair may have made \u00a3200,000 commission on bets that Morford lost between 2018 and 2024, overlapping significantly with the period of his fraud.<\/p>\n
Internal documents suggest Betfair also missed several opportunities to identify that Morford was using his father\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
In August 2022, he signed an email to \u201cGordon\u2019s\u201d VIP manager using his own name.<\/p>\n
Then, in March 2023 he made the same mistake. This time, an employee ran the name through the company\u2019s records, finding Morford\u2019s history of self-exclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not actioned or made any changes to the customer account but feel it necessary to raise my concerns with you as evidence suggests this customer has circumvented his exclusion in the past,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Despite this, no action was taken at the time.<\/p>\n
Betfair is a betting exchange rather than a bookmaker, meaning Morford lost money to fellow gamblers. Photograph: John Stillwell\/PA Archive\/PA Images<\/p>\n
Morford would go on to deposit more than \u00a3550,000 and lose tens of thousands of pounds until Betfair finally shut down his account amid concerns over his identity.<\/p>\n
His employer, the charitable housing organisation Co-operative Development Services (CDS), uncovered his fraud in 2024.<\/p>\n
CDS filed a successful \u00a3575,000 civil claim against Morford, which he partially paid using his \u00a3100,000 pension and his 50% stake in the home he shares with his wife and daughter, worth \u00a3110,000.<\/p>\n
Another gambling company with which Morford lost money, SpreadEx, agreed to provide a further \u00a345,000 to CDS.<\/p>\n
Betfair has so far declined to help make redress, raising questions over whether the gambling firm should keep the commission it made.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, Andrew Morford\u2019s case is not an isolated one,\u201d said Jacqui Bell, criminal justice services director of GamLearn,\u201d a charity that works with gambling addicts who have committed crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re supporting over 50 people in near-identical situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that evidence gathered by the charity showed \u201crepeated failures by UK-licensed operators and substantial losses retained despite clear evidence of gambling harm\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a victim statement submitted to court, CDS appeared to take aim at gambling operators including Betfair. It said that several gambling companies had \u201cprofited considerably from this\u201d and questioned whether they had done enough to prevent it.<\/p>\n
Betfair hinted that it would consider handing the money it made from Morford to his victim, saying: \u201cWe have an established divestment process, to which this case will be subject to once criminal proceedings have completed.\u201d<\/p>\n