Man Who Spent £27 Million In Five Days At Casino Is Suing For £250,000

A businessman is suing a casino in London where he gambled £27 million ($35.5m) in just five days.

Juste Puharic, from Croatia, staked the whopping sum at Park Lane Club in Mayfair and actually ended up £1.5m ($1.98m) up.

However, he is now suing because he claims he only wagered the vast amount of cash at the roulette table on the proviso that the casino would pay him 0.9 percent commission on his stakes.

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Puharic says he is therefore 'contractually entitled' to £243,518 ($320,800) in commission from the £27,057,621 ($35,649,000) he wagered, on top of his £1,466,056 ($1,931,600) winnings.

Silverbond Enterprises Ltd - which owns the club - denies that it owes Puharic anything from the gambling binge, which took place between 26 May and 30 May 2015.

Speaking at London's High Court on behalf of Puharic, Christopher Bamford said his client had been a regular at Mayfair casinos since 2002 and was identified by Park Lane Club as a valuable player 'whom it wished to attract to gamble at the club'.

In order to entice him, Puharic claims he was offered a 0.9 percent commission on his stakes, matching a win or lose cash-back offer he was getting at other casinos.

He says the offer was made after he was approached in the street and invited to discuss the offer over a coffee and dinner.

However Guy Olliff-Cooper, speaking for Park Lane Club, denied that Puharic had been headhunted or made a formal offer, claiming the staff member who approached him in the street was 'not particularly interested' in attracting him as a player, but was 'simply trying to be polite'.

He added that the only incentive offered to roulette players at Park Lane Club was discretionary free hospitality and commission which could be used as a 'discount on losses', but not claimed by a player who came out on top.

He said: "Casinos use a variety of incentives to attract customers. The defendant's position is simply that it never made him this matching offer.

"The defendant did not offer to match or better the incentives that Mr Puharic received at other Mayfair casinos.

"This action should be dismissed."

Judge Gavin Mansfield QC will make a decision in the case at a later date.

Topics: UK News, Casino, Gambling

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

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