Aspinalls Casino recovers £2m from customer

05/03/2007

Between October 1994 and April 2006, the Defendant visited Aspinalls on over 600 occasions, purchasing gaming tokens to the value of over £91,000,000 and losing over £23,000,000. In March 2000, he lost £2m, drawing on four separate script or house cheques for £500,000 each drawn on a joint account of the Defendant and his wife. He was then given gaming tokens to the value of each cheque. The Defendant substituted the cheques with a single cheque for £2m, which the Defendant alleged was signed on the understanding that it would not be dated and that it would not be presented until after a dispute with a croupier had been resolved. On 14 March Aspinalls presented the substitute cheque, which had been dated 10 March. It was dishonoured as the Defendant had sent a fax to his bank countermanding payment. Aspinalls eventually issued proceedings and applied for summary judgment.

The Defendant contended that Aspinalls was in breach of the agreement not to date or present the cheque, that the cheque had been post-dated within the meaning of s 16(2) Gaming Act 1968, and that he had only provided the cheque on the understanding that it would not be dated or presented until the 'dispute' had been resolved, which amounted to the unlawful provision of credit. He contended that the transaction was a sham, since there had been no common expectation of payment on presentation within two days; alternatively, that the claim on the cheque and the underlying loan should fail because Aspinalls had agreed not to date the cheque and/or present it and/or agreed not to sue on the loans.

Mr Justice David Steel ordered that:

The undated cheque was not invalid. Nor was it invalid by being ante-dated. Even if there had been an agreement not to date or present the cheque, the cheque remained a valid and unconditional offer to pay. The submission that the scheme was a 'sham' was incorrect. In addition to the claim on the cheque, Aspinalls was entitled to enforce the underlying loan agreement. Each script cheque constituted a conditional repayment of a loan of cash in the form of gambling tokens. Those cheques were redeemed and substituted by the substitute cheque. The dishonour of those cheques led to the revival of the loans and Aspinalls had never agreed not to enforce the debt.

([i]Aspinall's Club Ltd v Al-Zayat [2007] EWHC 362 (Comm) 28 February 2007)

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