Credit: Adam Riding & Adobe Stock
Man Who ‘Won $400,000 Jackpot’ Had A Heart Attack After Being Told He Couldn’t Claim Prize Money
A 76-year-old grandfather suffered a heart attack after he was told by an online gambling company that he couldn’t withdraw the money.
John Riding, from Burnley, UK, hit the jackpot on the online gambling site – even the boss at his local betting shop confirmed the win afterwards.
Yet Riding’s world came crashing down when he tried to withdraw the funds into his bank account.
Instead of being able to treat his family to a fresh start, Riding was hospitalized by the stress that the game brought him.
How can something so good turn into something so horrific?
John Riding’s big win
On the day in question, 76-year-old Riding had been playing the William Hill Vegas casino game on his phone.
This particular game was called Jackpot Drop, which costs a stake of 14 cents a spin.
As he spun the game, he managed to win. However, it wasn’t a small win by any means.
The number on the screen displayed a whopping $400,000.
Riding told the Daily Star: “I was ecstatic. I couldn’t believe it, it felt like a dream.
“I didn’t think things like that would happen to me.”
Still in disbelief, John Riding down to his local bookie to see if this was the real deal.
“They checked my account for me and told me I’d won that money. I was celebrating with the other customers.
“I’ve never felt such joy. I couldn’t wait to tell my son and daughter.
“I told them: ‘I’ve got some life-changing news.'”
John planned to spend the money on taking his entire family to his favorite place in the world, St.Ives, Cornwall.
He would also be able to buy his granddaughter a car.
Riding said: “But most of all, I was going to be able to move closer to my son and daughter and grandchildren and to take away money worries for all my family.”
However, only 24-hours later, his plans of vacations and the disappearance of money troubles for his whole family crashed down around him.
Dream turn into a nightmare
After winning nearly $400,000, Riding believed his life was going to change.
He wanted to use the money to change his and his family’s lives – but just 24-hours later, the money had vanished from his account.
After the money had been deposited into his account, Riding told the BBC that he immediately decided to transfer some of his winnings into his bank account.
“I pressed withdraw and it blocked me,” he recounted.
“It wouldn’t let me enter my password or anything. It just blocked me out of my account, and I haven’t got it back since.”
The next day, William Hill, the betting company, emailed to alert him that they had adjusted his account to take back the winnings.
They had put his original $19.55 back in.
“That’s bizarre because what is that money for?” his son Adam told the BBC. “If no win happened, why did they put that back in the account?”
Riding rang the company several times, but explained the line just went dead.
When he did get through, the person he spoke to said they couldn’t deal with it.
10 days after his supposed win, Riding fell seriously ill.
“After several days of not being able to talk to anybody – not being able to get anything resolved whatsoever – I came up to bed and felt really unwell, which resulted in an admission to hospital via ambulance with a heart attack,” he said.
Adam, Riding’s son, added: “It was such a horrific week. We spent 18 hours in a resuscitation ward, and we genuinely thought he wasn’t going to pull through.”
Riding spent nearly a week in hospital after his heart attack.
Not the only one?
Riding is not the only person to have lost their online gambling winnings.
One British mother was recently left devastated after being told she could not collect her $1.6 million jackpot winnings.
Claire Ainsley mentally started spending her riches after finding more than $1 million in credit in her account after playing Jackpot drop.
When the single mother went to withdraw the huge sum into her own bank account, the transaction was declined at the last minute.
In 48-hours, Ainsley had her hopes and dreams ripped away from her over an ‘issue’ with the game.
Another woman from Yorkshire, UK, managed to withdraw her $35,000 jackpot.
However, after Gemma Bradle took her winnings, she was told she had to pay it back by William Hill.
Like the other affected by this issue, Bradle had planned to use the money to change her life and pay off her mortgage.
Company issues a response
For all of these players, it was an alleged glitch that caused their accounts to be credited with the eye-watering figures.
Evoke, the parent company that owns William Hill, has issued a statement over the alleged glitch, stating that a number of accounts were ‘erroneously credited’ due to an error.
“During a routine review of platform activity, we identified an issue affecting the Jackpot Drop game, which temporarily resulted in incorrect sums being credited to players’ balances and withdrawals being processed incorrectly,” they said, as per LADbible.
“Whilst we quickly identified and resolved this issue, for a short period of time, funds were erroneously credited to some customer accounts that were not correctly generated through valid or properly functioning gameplay.
“We have contacted relevant customers to clarify the issue, and are in the process of retrieving the funds in line with our standard terms and conditions.
“We have been grateful for our customers’ understanding on this matter and apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
William Hill said the company was ‘very sorry to hear about Mr Riding’s condition and wish him a very speedy recovery,’ as per the BBC.
Related Article: Lottery Winner Burned Through $50 Million Of Prize Money By Spending $131k A Week
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