Corrinne Durber was told she had won the “monster jackpot” of £1,097,132.71 while playing Paddy Power’s Alice in Wonderland-themed online slot game “The Wild Hatter” during the Covid pandemic in October 2020.
But her account was only credited with £20,265.14, with the company saying an error had led to a mismatch between the result on her screen and that determined by the central computer server at Paddy Power HQ.
Mrs Durber then sued, taking Paddy Power to the High Court in London, where top judge Mr Justice Ritchie today gave judgment in her favour on her £1m claim.
Giving summary judgment, the judge said the rules of the game meant Paddy Power had to pay the result which showed on its screen – and it could not avoid paying when the discrepancy was due to “human error.”
“The claimant spun the wheel and won the Monster Jackpot and there was nothing more to this case than that.
“The rules of the game applied and determined that the jackpot wheel shown by the defendant’s software on the claimant’s digital screen determined that she had won the Monster Jackpot,” he said in his ruling.
The court heard that Mrs Durber’s win came on October 18, 2020, while the “three-tier” system of Covid restrictions was in place and just prior to the imposition of the second full national lockdown.
The game – described in one online review as “a zany, off the hook Wonderland driven slot” – is based around a 5×4 fruit machine style grid, in which players hope to match winning symbols.
The game features an additional bonus “jackpot game,” which can be triggered by matching three jackpot symbols – which is exactly what Mrs Durber did, her barrister, Mark Baldock, told the judge.
“According to the game rules, Mrs Durber then had to ‘spin the jackpot wheel to determine which of the offered jackpot tiers will be won’,” he said.
“This is what she did. The jackpot wheel, once spun, showed Mrs Durber that she had won the ‘Monster Jackpot’ i.e. £1,097,132.71.
“However Mrs Durber’s account with the defendant was only credited with the considerably lesser sum of the ‘Daily Jackpot’ £20,265.14.”
When she complained, Mrs Durber, from Gloucestershire, was told that the wrong result had been displayed and that she was only due to the lesser amount.
The case went to the High Court last month, when her lawyers argued that summary judgment should be given on her claim against the bookie.
Paddy Power lawyers argued that the result of the game was actually determined by a random number generator and what was shown on screen was irrelevant “wallpaper” and an “entertainment feature.”
Terms and conditions in its games also meant that it would not be liable for “systems or communication errors,” it claimed in its defence.
The result on screen was different to the true result due to a “human error” in programming the system, the company said.
Giving judgment today, Mr Justice Ritchie said: “The main point made by the claimant in her submissions was that the rules stated, in relation to the Jackpot Game which she was playing: ‘spin the jackpot wheel to determine which of the offered jackpot tiers will be won’.
“The claimant spun the wheel and won the Monster Jackpot and there was nothing more to this case than that.
“The defendant had sympathy with the claimant in view of what she had seen on her screen but this was not a valid win.
“The defendant was not taking away from the claimant what she had genuinely won.”
He said that, under the rules, “by spinning the wheel shown on screen, the claimant would have her jackpot determined before her very eyes on the screen, understanding that the screen display was created by the defendant’s software.”
Although Paddy Power had constructed the game so that it decided a result within a milli-second of the spin button being pressed, that is not what the game rules stated.
“That was not known to the claimant when she accepted the rules and that was not explained in the rules,” he said.
“Quite the opposite was explained in the rules, which set out a two-stage process, with two clicks of the spin button and, by express words, two computer determinations displayed on screen, one for each of the two stages.
“The key stage in this case being the second spin, causing the wheel of jackpots to spin and come to rest on the Monster Jackpot.”
Finding that Paddy Power could not avoid paying by relying on terms and conditions relating to “systems or communications error,” he added: “The software and hardware did not malfunction, it was programmed wrongly by a human being.
“The defendant has admitted that there was an error caused by a human whom the defendant employed or sub-contracted.
“This person mis-mapped the software which affected the ‘result’ shown on screen.”
The vital clause in the terms and conditions did not cover “human errors” in programming the screen display and so did not entitle Paddy Power to avoid paying the win shown on screen.
“Therefore, summary judgment should be entered for the claimant,” he concluded.