Featured Image Credit: SWNS
Topics: Crime, Gambling, Social Media, Money
Jess Battison
Winning a decent chunk of money on a bet can leave you feeling smug as f**k.
Heading to the bookies to collect your cash knowing you’re going to be that bit richer on the way out should leave you absolutely buzzing.
But imagine expecting to stack up your paper but finding the money isn’t there to stack, as this man experienced when going to collect his £1,300 bet winnings, only to find someone else had got there first.
David ‘DJ’ Gardiner had put £100 on Kyren Wilson winning the Snooker World Championship final at odds of 12/1. So, understandably he was made up to see him take the Crucible crown on 6 May.
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However, when the 65-year-old from Kettering headed over to Coral bookmakers, he was told the winnings had already been claimed. And to really turn the knife, they’d been claimed 100 miles away in another part of the UK.
“I was mortified but it’s my own fault. I just didn’t think,” DJ said.
Turns out the bloke had posted a snap of his betting slip on the World Snooker Tour Facebook page.
"It was probably just the excitement getting to me knowing he was about to make the final. I posted it when he on the brink of winning his semi-final,” he explained.
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"I'm a big snooker fan, I owned a snooker hall in London years ago, and Kyren is a hometown lad so I was excited he could win his first world championship.”
That excitement screwed him over though, as it’s believed a scammer managed to take a screenshot of the ticket, scanning the barcode in at a branch in Stoke-on-Trent.
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DJ said: "I was kicking myself but it's not something I knew fraudsters had the capability of doing without having the actual slip itself. I just want to warn others out there”
He advises against people posting photos of their bets on Facebook as CCTV showed a man going into a Coral branch, scanning a slip, placing a £200 bet from it and withdrawing the remaining £1,100 for himself.
And that was just less than half an hour before DJ went to claim the winnings himself. He says the man ‘must have known how the systems work’ but: “The irony is that had Kyren won earlier in the evening I’d have gone and cashed it out straight away.”
The former army veteran added: “I’m totally gutted but there’s nothing I can do about it now – it’s just gut-wrenching.”
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A spokesperson for Entain, which owns Coral, said: “In order to prevent this kind of fraud from happening, we urge customers to keep their betting slips safe and to not share with them anyone else – either in person or online – until they have been safely cashed in at one of our shops.”
The incident has also been reported to Action Fraud. Pauline Smith, head of Action Fraud, said: "It has been recorded on our system as an information report.
“An information report can be made when a fraud has not been committed or there is suspicion of criminal intent. An information report is also made if somebody is reporting a fraud on behalf of a victim or a person is the victim of identity theft.”
Please gamble responsibly. For help, support and advice about problem gambling, contact the National Gambling Helpline anytime on 0808 8020 133.