The High Court of Justice in London has ordered Paddy Power to honour a £1 million jackpot win by an online customer.
The £1,097,132.71 Monster Jackpot was won by the player in October 2020 on the Wild Hatter online slot game, but Paddy Power only paid her £20,265.14, which represented the smaller Daily Jackpot prize.
After the player complained about the lower prize payout, Paddy Power explained that the computer system which ran the game had made an error in the display and should have pointed to the Daily Jackpot prize.
In refusing to pay the larger jackpot, the company relied on terms and conditions which stated that the Random Number Generator (RNG) determines all wins, as opposed to what is shown on the screen.
The company accepted that during the claimant’s play the screen showed that she had won a Jackpot because three Jackpot symbols appeared on the slot reels. An animation was then presented to the player with the Jackpot wheel, but a mapping error meant that when the wheel was spun, the pointer came to rest on the Monster Jackpot segment when it should have pointed to a Daily Jackpot segment.
Paddy Power argued that it was correct to pay the lower prize amount and was allowed to do so under the rules of the game and the terms and conditions of its website. However, the court found that the relevant clauses in the contract “create a serious imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations” so as to undermine good faith.
“It abolishes the Defendant’s obligation to pay out for the on-screen win. It takes away the Claimant’s right to claim her on screen win. This combination of secret determination off screen and abolishment of the evidential probative value of the player’s screen display, put all the power into the Defendant’s hands and disempowered the player,” the court stated in its ruling.
“The equivalent in live roulette, would arise where the player who bet on number 13 and sees the ball stop on the roulette wheel on number 13, is not allowed to rely on what she sees. A term allowing the house to assert that the ball actually landed on another number (say zero) would be unusual and disempowering.”
The court added that there is nothing inherently unfair in a clause that excludes liability in a variety of circumstances, but noted that as constructed, it excluded liability for valid wins too.
“Furthermore, this clause entitles the Defendant to avoid liability for Defendant’s own recklessness, gross negligence, negligence and long term failure properly to test. The breadth of the defaults covered is substantial. A more focussed clause would create less imbalance. For these reasons, in my judgment, clause B2 created a significant imbalance between the parties which I consider breaches the requirement of good faith.”
The court ruled that the clauses included in the written contractual terms were not incorporated into the contract between the parties because they were unusual and onerous and were not adequately brought to the claimant’s attention.
The High Court issued summary judgement in favour of the claimant.
Shares in Paddy Power parent Flutter Entertainment plc. (NYSE:FLUT) closed 1.44 per cent higher at $269.97 per share in New York Wednesday.