UK Teenager Spent GBP 80,000 On Sports Betting

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Jun 8, 2018

Expensive lesson in financial monitoring for father whose credit cards were pirated

Over the weekend several UK newspapers illustrated the dangers of underage gambling when they reported on the GBP 80,000 sports betting activities of a 13-year-old.

The unnamed Lancashire schoolboy was attracted to gambling by sports betting advertisements, and was able to open a sports betting account at an unidentified website using his father’s company credit cards, which he had photographed with his cellphone.

He told reporters that he found it easy to register and start betting, saying:

‘It was just far too easy. I just had to put in dad’s name, address, date of birth and card details and checked a box saying I was 18 – it took literally seconds to register and start gambling.’

With his gambling spend at GBP 20,000 the teenager’s activities were discovered by his parents, who arranged for a psychotherapist intervention hoping this would cure his penchant for gambling, but after a short interval (and presumably still in possession of Dad’s card details) he resumed gambling, running up a further GBP 60,000 in gambling spend.

At one point he was betting GBP 3,000 on football matches and horse races, the newspapers report.

His parents are now faced with paying off the credit card debt, which has reportedly played havoc with the family’s finances.

The newspaper reports have conflated the story with UK Gambling Commission figures which reporters claim reveal that 25,000 minors aged 11 – 16 are addicted to gambling, and other reports that MPs are calling for tighter controls on gambling advertisements attractive to children.

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.


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