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Widow Campaigns for Gambling Regulation After Husband's Suicide
Annie Ashton discovered after her husband Luke Ashton's death in 2021 that he had been placing more than 100 bets a day. A coroner in England ruled that gambling disorder contributed to his suicide and that the gambling operator missed opportunities to intervene. Ashton has since advocated for stronger industry regulation and better awareness of gambling harm in the UK and Australia.
May 15, 6:31 PM·3m read1 source
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Annie Ashton discovered that her husband had placed over 100 bets a day in the period leading up to his death. " Her husband, Luke Ashton, was found dead on April 22, 2021, in South Yorkshire, England. He was 40 years old. Three weeks after his death, police returned his phone to Ashton.
She then accessed bank details that led to a PayPal account and transactions to a gambling operator's platform. She asked a coroner to investigate the death. The coroner, Ivan Cartwright, found that Luke Ashton suffered from a longstanding gambling disorder which contributed to his decision to take his own life.
The coroner also determined that the gambling operator did not interact with him in any meaningful way in the two years before his death. "Opportunities were missed, which may possibly have changed the outcome for Luke," the coroner said. >The coroner found that the gambling operator he used did not interact with him in any meaningful way in the two years preceding his death.
— Coroner Ivan Cartwright The operator, Betfair, used an algorithm meant to identify customers at risk of harm. The managing director of Betfair's parent company, Flutter, told the inquest that the company should have done more. The coroner described the ruling as the first time in England that gambling disorder had been listed as a cause of death.
Flutter said in a letter to the coroner that it had made a number of changes to its systems and controls since early 2021. The majority of those changes occurred prior to the company becoming aware that Luke Ashton had taken his own life. The company added that it would incorporate additional learnings from the case, including reviewing patterns of play to amend its safer gambling models.
