{"id":966,"date":"2021-06-10T08:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/?p=966"},"modified":"2021-06-11T07:59:21","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T07:59:21","slug":"high-stakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/highlights\/high-stakes\/06-2021","title":{"rendered":"High Stakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in spring, Lincolnshire\u2019s Andy Green hit the headlines in his bid to make an online gambling platform pay out on his \u00a31.7m win. A\u2008couple of months later we join Andy to reflect on three years of high stakes and equally high emotions…<\/h3>\n
\"Andy
Andy Green of Lincoln.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Andy Green is either the unluckiest lucky man or the luckiest unlucky man in the country. Either way, he\u2019s a smashing one.\u00a0In April this year, Andy won an extraordinary \u2018David versus Goliath\u2019 style fight as High Court judge Mrs Justice Foster delivered her verdict; that Andy did indeed deserve his win, three years previously, on an online gambling platform.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, Andy finally received the \u00a31.7m he\u2019d won on 26th January 2018. But this wasn\u2019t simply a financial victory; it was a moral one. Born and raised in Lincoln, and living in Washingborough since 1997, Andy is still working for his engineering firm, and wanted his win to be acknowledged not just for his financial security, but for that of his two daughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t drink, don\u2019t go on holidays abroad, my transport was my work van, so the occasional flutter is my only real vice. Even then I can go for months without going on a particular platform, but on this occasion, I was on the sofa, watching TV and half paying attention to my phone on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Online platforms these days share games, so one game might appear on a number of bookies\u2019 apps. Andy was enjoying a flutter on a blackjack-style game which, Andy says, has an element of luck, and skill, knowing when to up the stake, and when to walk away. It was about 9.30pm, and being the cautious sort, he staked a conservative \u00a35.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat \u00a35 became \u00a3100, and then it jumped up to \u00a3600!\u201d Andy recalls. \u201cThe premise of the game is that there are seven lucky horseshoes across the screen, and drawing a card with a blue corner lights up one of seven bonus horseshoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI staked \u00a3100, banked \u00a3500 and with the next hand my winnings were \u00a310,600. With my fifth hand I reached \u00a338,000, and so I banked \u00a330,000 and staked \u00a38,000. Two bonuses later and I\u2019d turned \u00a330,000 into \u00a378,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

One final hand and with all of the bonuses achieved, Andy\u2019s phone trembled in his hand and he confesses to shedding a few tears as the final amount appeared on his screen: \u00a31,722,923.54.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was quite emotional, needless to say. I didn\u2019t sleep that night and was still wide awake at six-o\u2019clock the next morning,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount was too large to withdraw from the app, so I had to phone up and speak to a member of the customer service team. I don\u2019t think even he could believe it when he read the amount, and I was told that the VIP team would call me back a couple of hours later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat call came and they congratulated me, asked for my bank details and advised that with such a large amount it would be prudent to spread the amount over several concurrent bank accounts. I spent the next few days setting up a few more accounts and supplied the details but still, two weeks later, I hadn\u2019t received my winnings. And then the phone call came.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company called on 31st January to tell Andy that there had been a glitch in the game, and that his win was void. Unable to provide proof of the glitch, nor elaborate on its nature, other than to say that too many \u2018blue corner\u2019 cards had been given out by the game, the company instead made a \u2018good-will gesture\u2019 offer of \u00a330,000 on 8th February which was upped to \u00a360,000 a few days later, by way of a second offer \u2013 both with the condition of a non-disclosure agreement attached to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was heartbroken, absolutely gutted. I had dared to dream that it really was going to come to me. Now, the stress and the sense that I\u2019d lost what was \u2013 fairly and squarely \u2013 mine was like a form of grief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy found an ally in Peter Coyle, of Amersham-based Coyle White Devine, a niche legal practice specialising in dispute resolution. Peter agreed to take on Andy\u2019s case and so begun a number of texts and calls and emails between the companies, with no success.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking on a company whose turnover in 2018\/2019 was \u00a310bn is not something that came easy, and when communication was going nowhere, there was only one option left; The High Court,\u201d says Andy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first hearing in the court was set for later in 2018. A full hearing in the High Court typically takes four days, but the judge offered us what\u2019s known as a green application \u2013 a one day preliminary hearing \u2013 which took place in October 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a day of legal terminology and hard benches. I was exhausted at the end of the day. We had an idea that we\u2019d been successful, but Justice Foster wanted time to consider the case so I had to return to Lincoln and just get on with life. We received word that the court had reached a conclusion and we were given a date to appear back at London\u2019s High Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was in a couple of weeks, early in April, and the announcement was due to take place at about two in the afternoon. But by the time we arrived at court, the announcement had already taken place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite a matter-of-fact statement, no longer than 30 seconds or so. The announcement stated that \u2018the claimant succeeds in his application for summary judgement.\u2019\u201d It was made considerably more explicit than that, by my barrister. He phoned me up to say \u2018Andy, you\u2019re a millionaire!\u2019 I was on my way to the court and when I turned on to Fleet Street, I couldn\u2019t believe it. All of a sudden 50 \u2013 maybe more \u2013 journalists were suddenly surrounding me. Press, camera crews\u2026 it was like I was a rock star.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was still a further two weeks until Justice Foster determined the amount of interest that Andy would receive on top of his initial win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel that it was a proper moral victory,\u201d he says. \u201cPeter actually said to me that faced with the offer the company made and the non-disclosure agreement, most would have accepted it \u2013 he even said that his wife would have made him accept the offer \u2013 and that he can\u2019t believe how strong I was. There were times I didn\u2019t feel it. Peter definitely saw me at my best and my worst, there were times I\u2019d phone him up in tears. But I was determined not to give in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three years on from his initial win and Andy is very upfront, talking openly about the experience, but he maintains that his interest was not the money but rather the sense of justice he feels. It\u2019s telling that though his bank balance has swollen considerably and yet Andy has no plans to move home, travel abroad or spend money on status symbols.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a single parent since 2010 and there have been times I\u2019ve gone without for my two daughters. I\u2019ve always been careful with money and so I\u2019ve ordered new double glazing but honestly that\u2019s the only thing I really wanted, even when I saw the balance on my bank statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s security, for myself and for my daughters. If they need something, from now only, they\u2019ll have it, and to be able to make that promise to them \u2013 just to be able to make sure they\u2019re OK \u2013 is what the last three years have been all about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in spring, Lincolnshire\u2019s Andy Green hit the headlines in his bid to make an online gambling platform pay out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":967,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,212,210,213,74,211],"class_list":["post-966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights","tag-andy-green","tag-bet","tag-gambling","tag-high-court","tag-lincoln","tag-platform"],"acf":false,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/lincolnshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}