The small claims court

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The small claims court

Gambling operations located in the UK come under the authority of the UK Gambling Commission. O Happy Day, I hear you say - if it's Great Britain, it can only be great.

Well, no. In fact, it's actually potentially quite bad, because the Commission, uniquely amongst regulators, does not enforce payment or even investigate payment disputes against operators, requiring the matter to be dealt with by a third party which is, to cap it all, appointed by the operator itself and potentially anything but independent.

However, the bad news ends there. The good news is that a gambling operation located in the UK is subject to the UK legal system, and for payment disputes of £5000 and under there is a relatively simple procedure known informally as the Small Claims Court.

The Small Claims Court - or, more properly, the Small Claims Track, there being no actually distinct court which deals with these claims - comes at a maximum cost of £120 for claims up to the £5000 limit. However, as fees are subject to change, you'd be advised to check with the court at the time of your claim.

The first thing to do is to fill in the claim form:

Claimant: your name.

Defendant(s): the operation that owes you the money.

Brief details of claim: give a summary of the matter.

Value: how much you are owed.

Defendants name and address: name and address of the company that owes the money.

Amount claimed: the sum owed.

Court fee: see above - check with the court.

Solicitor's costs: hopefully you're not using one, so this will be "0".

Total amount: this should simply be the amount of the claim again, unless you want to try and claim back the court fee.

Particulars of Claim: a full, detailed description of the matter, including all action you have taken to the present moment, including your attempts to settle the matter amicably with the operation in question.

On that last point, it's a requirement of the system that you try to achieve a resolution first with the operator. If you do not do this, you can invalidate your claim. The courts are a last, not first, resort.

Once you've completed the form, send or take TWO copies to wherever you'd like the hearing to take place - you can use the court-finder to locate the nearest to you. Don't forget to include the fee, which you can pay by cash, cheque or debit card.

When the court receives your claim form, they'll forward it to the operation in question, who will decide whether or not to defend the action. By far the best option for you, assuming you have a watertight case, is that the operator decides at this point to forget about withholding your money and pay you.

If they decide to contest the matter things get more complicated, and you can find details of the whole procedure in the "for people whose dispute has gone to court" document.

In brief: you'll be sent further documentation to fill in, and you'll also have to liase with the defendant so that you each know what the other is submitting. Once this is taken care of, you'll be given a hearing date.

At any point in the procedure the operator may decide to settle your claim to avoid going to court.

According to information I received from my local county court by telephone: if you are not located in the UK and cannot come to the UK for any of the above procedures, you can write out an authorisation for someone to act on your behalf and sign it, which your representative will then give to the court when presenting your documents. If you cannot attend the hearing, you can write to the court and ask them to go ahead in your absence, which they will do.

I am not clear as to whether or not a representative can act on your behalf at the hearing, but this could be clarified once the wheels are in motion and the particulars of your case are on record.

Three other useful links:

Direct Gov: small claims hearings

This is money: how to make a small claim

Advice guide: small claims

HM Courts: civil and family court fees

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2 Previous Comments

Hiya Caruso, eek here (long time no see)

You will find that there are precedents for gambling cases from decades ago.
The basic underlying principle is the courts want absolutely nowt to do with gambling disputes.

By Anonymous, at 12:42 am

Eek baby, excellent to hear from you. Drop me an email or something.

Take a look here: Betfair Happy Hour resolution.

Now, fair to say that it was resolved PRE-court, but all documents were served on Betfair, and the thing was all set to go ahead. Frankly, what they want to deal with is their problem; if the matter lies within their jurisdiction, I'd say they're fair game to mediate.

By 100% Gambler, at 2:46 pm