A Paddy Power customer who was refused a £1 million slot game jackpot by the firm has won a landmark legal case.
The High Court has ruled that Paddy Power’s reason for not paying out – a so-called ‘system error’ – was not legal grounds to withhold Corrinne Durber’s payment of £1,097,132.
Justice Ritchie concluded that ‘what you see is what you should get’, and so when the jackpot win messaging appeared on the screen of Mrs Durber’s iPad, she was entitled to believe that that was exactly the amount she had won.
It’s a verdict that could set an important precedent for players in the future, with online gambling firms no longer able to hide behind technical glitches – where they have been caused by human error – as a way to avoid paying huge jackpot prizes.
Monster Jackpot
Mrs Durber, a gardener from Gloucestershire, was playing Paddy Power’s Wild Hatter game, which features the standard slot mechanics alongside a jackpot bonus wheel.
She triggered the bonus game after revealing a series of matching symbols on her reels, which afforded her the chance to sin the wheel of fortune.
After her spin, Mrs Durber was greeted by a message on screen that said she had won the game’s Monster Jackpot, which stood at just over £1 million.
However, Paddy Power claimed that there had been a mistake and that she should have been shown the Daily Jackpot messaging instead, which amounted to £20,265.
PPB Entertainment, the trading name of Paddy Power and Betfair, had logged the result of Mrs Durber’s spin in their central server, claiming that the sequence shown by the random number generator should have triggered the smaller jackpot prize instead. But an error in the game’s animation meant that she was shown to have ‘won’ the rather more considerable amount instead.
The argument that her legal team made, meanwhile, was that Paddy Power were liable for the amount shown on screen; they should be made to pay out in good faith. And after several rounds of legal battles, the matter finally made its way to the High Court in London.
And it was here that Justice Ritchie made his landmark judgement…
Breach of Contract
The case played out over several weeks, as representatives from Paddy Power and their software suppliers explained how the technical glitch had occurred. Their legal team also tried to argue that Mrs Durber was only entitled to the £20,000 Daily Jackpot prize.
The plaintiff and her lawyer, Peter Coyle, saw things differently, suing PPB Entertainment for their apparent breach of contract.
After hearing both sides of the argument, Justice Ritchie came to his conclusion: Mrs Durber was to be paid the full £1,097,132 amount, granting her a summary judgment which meant that the case didn’t have to go to a full trial.
The judge detailed his opinion that online casino games ‘put all the risk’ on the customer, even if the software firm or operator is to blame for ‘its own recklessness, negligence, errors, inadequate digital services and inadequate testing.’ Ritchie described such a state of affairs as ‘onerous’.
In an approved judgement that spans some 62 pages, he said that all online casino games should be governed by the idea that ‘what you see is what you get.’
“Objectively, customers would want and expect that what was to be shown to them on screen to be accurate and correct,” Ritchie commented.
“The same expectation probably applies when customers go into a physical casino and play roulette.
“They expect the house to pay out on the roulette wheel if they bet on number 13 and the ball lands on number 13.”
The judge concluded that ‘human error’ was at fault in the mapping of the software, which showed Mrs Durber the wrong jackpot graphics on screen, and so PPB Entertainment did not have a viable legal defence.
Understandably, Mrs Durber was delighted with the verdict which saw her become an overnight millionaire, describing the outcome as ‘life changing’.
“As you can imagine, I’m so relieved and happy that the judge has confirmed I fairly and squarely won £1m from Paddy Power.
“What’s the point in betting if companies like Paddy Power won’t pay up when someone wins a big jackpot?”
“Obviously it will look after the children, from that we’ll pay their mortgages and we’re going to enjoy our retirement,” she said.
A spokesperson for PPB Entertainment commented:
“We deeply regret this unfortunate case and are reviewing the judgment.”