Ladbrokes refuse to pay out a £1m winning bet to a young teenager from County Durham, after he failed to complete the correct betting slip.
Imagine you have placed a 13-bet accumulator on the football scores and you have just one more match to err in your favor and you will be a millionaire?
How excited would you be?
Then imagine being with your loved ones as the result comes in your favor.
You have won one million bucks.
Can you imagine the relief, the tears of joy, and the absolute wonder of it all as your life is about to change forever?
Then imagine it being taken away from you again.
That’s exactly what happened to 19-year old Jordan Donnellan of Consett County Durham, in a blunder that he will remember for the rest of his existence on this very earth.
The young teenage barman had correctly predicted the outcome of 13/14 football matches and needed Juventus to beat Catania in Italy’s Serie A to win £1m in prize money.
The 19-year old gathered his friends and family together whilst they watched the score come in in their local pub, but his moment as a millionaire didn’t last that long after the Ladbrokes branch in Consett refused to pay the boy after it was revealed that he had completed the wrong betting slip.
Instead of filling in the Weekend Quickslip, Donnellan had completed the Weekend Result Rush coupon, meaning his slip was about as much use as a pair of chocolate sunglasses on a one-eared blind man walking through the desert.
“All of that money wouldn’t have changed me but it would have been really nice and would have helped out a lot.” The youngster told The Northern Echo.
It’s such a shame that Donnellan didn’t place his bet at Betfred instead of struggling Ladbrokes. The Manchester outfit has just shelled out £200,000 in a wonderful show of sympathy for anyone mug enough to place a Premier League title winning bet on Manchester United, and in January they agreed to pay a Port Talbot pensioner £40,948 after he had completed his betting slip incorrectly on a five horse accumulator.
In this case the man from Port Talbot took his argument all the way to the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS), only to lose, before Fred Done turned the tables and decided to pay the man his dues as he could see he had truly meant to place the bet despite the mistake.
One does wonder whether Mr Done would have been so generous had the prize been £1m instead of forty grand.
