Credit: Facebook
Online Casino Responds After Woman Told She Can’t Collect $1.6 Million Jackpot
The online casino has responded after a woman was told she cannot collect her $1.6 million jackpot.
There are few feelings in the world quite like believing you have won a life-changing amount of money.
The plans that form instantly, the phone calls to family, the mental calculations about houses and holidays and a future that suddenly looks completely different.
For one British mother of two, all of that happened — and then, within days, it was taken away. What has followed is a story that has gripped the internet, prompted a legal expert to explain exactly why betting companies can do this, and ended with an intervention from a rival firm that nobody saw coming.
A routine check that changed everything
Claire Ainsley was going about her day when she decided to open the William Hill betting app and check her account.
What she found stopped her in her tracks. Her balance showed a jackpot win of £1,279,019.95 — more than a million pounds — from the app’s Jackpot Drop game. She checked it again. She went off the game three times just to be sure.
She was sure.
Like anyone in that position, she immediately began imagining what a sum like that could mean for her family. She thought about buying a house for her children. She thought about savings accounts, holidays, a better life. She thought about her late mother, who had passed away three years earlier, and wondered if the win was somehow a gift from her.
She contacted William Hill by email, sent screenshots of her account, and asked what she needed to do to claim her prize. The response was encouraging.
“They messaged back saying they’re going to send it over to my bank in 72 hours,” she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain. “They just wanted me to send my ID over, so I did. I sent that all over, and they said, ‘Yes, it will be in your bank.'”
With the win apparently confirmed, Claire told her family and friends. She made plans. She allowed herself to feel, properly and fully, the joy of believing her circumstances had transformed overnight.
The dream collapses
Two days later, when Claire attempted to withdraw the money, the transaction was declined. Then came the email she had not been expecting.
William Hill informed her that the apparent jackpot was the result of a technical glitch — the funds had never legitimately been won, and she would not be receiving them.
“I got an email two days afterwards saying, ‘It was a glitch,'” she told Good Morning Britain, visibly distressed. “Me and my children aren’t going to get anything. I was gutted, really gutted.”
She went from planning her children’s future to having nothing — not even her original stake — in the space of 48 hours.
What makes Claire’s story particularly striking is that she is not an isolated case. She is a member of a Facebook group containing dozens of people who say they have experienced the same thing through the same William Hill Jackpot Drop game.
Their wins range from the tens of thousands to, in Claire’s case, over a million pounds — and in each instance, William Hill has told them the wins were the result of an error and will not be paid out.
Gemma Bradle, from Yorkshire, says she was told she had won £47,182 — and was actually able to withdraw £33,000 of it before William Hill moved to recover the funds, demanding she pay it back. “I’m absolutely gutted. I haven’t been sleeping properly,” she said.
Most strikingly of all, 76-year-old John Riding told the BBC that he suffered a heart attack after William Hill voided his apparent win of £285,000.
“It just absolutely destroyed me and I just went off balance and had a resulting heart attack,” he said.
What the casino has said
Evoke, the parent company that owns William Hill, has issued a statement acknowledging the problem while firmly maintaining its right not to pay out, per LADBible.
“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,” the company said.
“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 apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
Their legal position appears to be solid, at least on paper. Appearing on Good Morning Britain alongside Claire, lawyer Ayesha Nayyar explained that betting companies typically protect themselves against exactly this scenario through their terms and conditions.
“The terms and conditions include a clause that says, if an error occurs or a malfunction occurs — whether that’s via a software bug, computer error or even a human error — the betting company can void that play and not pay out,” she said. “
In this case, they’re saying the condition that would have triggered the jackpot wasn’t actually triggered.”
After Claire appeared on Good Morning Britain and her story spread widely, William Hill made contact. Their offer: £39 in reimbursement. For a woman who had spent days believing she had won over a million pounds, the figure was bewildering.
“I got an email back saying ‘We’ll give you £39,'” Claire said. “They’re just saying that so we don’t go higher. They’re just saying that because if we go higher it will look bad on the company.”
She also opened up about the toll the ordeal had taken on her mental health. “It’s really depressing. I struggle with my mental health as it is and it has taken a toll really badly on me at the moment.” She shared a screenshot of her William Hill account homepage showing a recorded profit of £1.2 million — alongside a balance of £0.
“You think you’ve got a miracle and then this,” she said.
The rival firm that changed everything
And then came the twist that nobody expected.
Following Claire’s appearance on television, the CEO of MetaWin — an online cryptocurrency-based betting firm — got in touch, LADBible reports.
Richard Skelhorn described what had happened to Claire as “absolutely shameful” and offered her £50,000 of his own accord, asking only that she write about what had happened and tag the company in it.
Claire, understandably cautious — because someone contacting you out of the blue to offer £50,000 is precisely the kind of thing that sounds like a scam — decided she had nothing to lose. “I got no money anyway,” she said, and provided her bank details.
The money came through. In a social media update confirming the payment, Claire wrote: “I want to thank you so so much for the money I still can’t believe it I really do appreciate it. MetaWin has sent me a life changing amount of money — £50,000. I can’t thank him enough, what an amazing gesture.”
She added that she was still in contact with William Hill, waiting to see if a more substantial response would be forthcoming. Whether it will be remains to be seen. In the meantime, she has said the experience has put her off gambling entirely.
“I think it’s all a scam now. 100 percent. I’m not a gambling person and the one time I thought I’d won that much money — and then this.”
Please gamble responsibly. For help, support and advice about problem gambling, contact the National Gambling Helpline anytime on 0808 8020 133.
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