A racehorse owner who tried to dodge an £840,000 gambling debt by claiming it stemmed from unlicensed betting has been told to pay up by the High Court. Worth knowing: this signals UK judges aren’t buying the same refund arguments that have gained traction elsewhere in Europe.

Alan Spence owed the money to David Solomon after a series of private betting arrangements. His defence? Solomon had been acting as an unlicensed bookmaker, which should void the agreements under the Gambling Act 2005. Normally, that argument carries weight.

Not this time.

Both Parties Knew Exactly What They Were Doing

Judge Stuart Isaacs KC found that both men understood the nature of their arrangement from the start. They weren’t strangers caught in an unlicensed transaction. They had an established relationship, and Spence knew perfectly well that Solomon wasn’t licensed. According to the judgment, Spence “engaged with the claimant with his eyes open, at first suspecting and then being clear that the claimant was not a licensed bookmaker.”

The court also heard evidence that Spence had misrepresented his finances and fabricated parts of his defence. That didn’t help his case. The ruling put fairness between the parties first, not regulatory technicalities. If you enter a private betting arrangement with full knowledge of what you’re doing, you can’t cry foul when the bill arrives.

A Different Approach to EU Refund Claims

This case stands in sharp contrast to what’s happening across the EU. Germany in particular has seen thousands of players filing claims to recover losses from operators who weren’t licensed before recent regulatory reforms. The argument is straightforward: if the operator wasn’t legal, the bets should be void.

European courts have shown considerably more sympathy to that position. A 2025 opinion from Advocate General Nicholas Emiliou at the European Court of Justice backed the view that such claims shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand, suggesting players may have genuine rights to recovery.

The High Court took a harder line. Spence wasn’t portrayed as a vulnerable consumer who stumbled into something he didn’t understand. He was a sophisticated participant in informal betting arrangements who knew the risks. The judgment makes clear that UK courts will look at the conduct of both parties, not just the licensing status of one. What matters is what you actually knew and when.

What This Means for Future Claims

The ruling won’t directly affect EU proceedings, but it establishes a principle. UK courts appear unwilling to entertain mass refund claims where both sides knowingly participated in unlicensed activity.

That matters for anyone thinking about testing similar arguments in British courts.

The focus here was on personal responsibility and the specific facts of the case. Spence had multiple opportunities to walk away or question the arrangement. He didn’t. When things went south, the court found no compelling reason to let him off the hook. It’s a pragmatic approach that puts fairness over regulatory formalism. Whether other jurisdictions follow suit remains to be seen, but for now, the message from the High Court is clear: if you place bets with your eyes open, don’t expect the law to bail you out when you lose.

What the team thinks

Sheena McAllister says:

This ruling reinforces what many of us in compliance have been saying for years: the UK’s regulatory framework draws clear distinctions between commercial gambling operations requiring licenses and private betting arrangements between individuals. What’s particularly significant here is that the court didn’t let Spence weaponize licensing requirements that were never designed to govern person-to-person wagers, which should give operators confidence that our regulatory system won’t be exploited through bad faith arguments imported from other jurisdictions.