Australian Poker Hall of Fame member Gary Benson has lost a legal bid to recoup almost $50,000 in money he claimed was owed by fellow poker player Michael O’Grady for sports bets O’Grady had placed with him, after the judge ruled Benson was acting as an unlicensed bookmaker and that any such debt could therefore not be enforced.
According to a judgement handed down by Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court this week, the legal stoush emanates from a series of 211 bets placed by O’Grady with Benson between May 2022 and February 2023 via a credit agreement. Benson kept track of those bets in a ledger which by 2023 showed O’Grady owing him $45,035.94.
After suing him and obtaining as judgement that year, the two entered into a compromise agreement under which O’Grady was to pay $48,711.84, representing the judgement debt and accrued interest. When the debt still wasn’t paid, Benson returned to the courtroom.
The WSOP bracelet winner argued that the money owed amounted to little more than private and social betting between acquaintances and was a legitimate debt arising from the compromise agreement that remained enforceable.
However, magistrate Scott Nash acknowledged this week that although Benson had not been earning a living from bookmaking, he had nevertheless been acting as a bookmaker under the definition provided by the state’s Unlawful Gambling Act 1998. Because he was not licensed to conduct a bookmaking business, Nash ruled that the compromise agreement between Benson and O’Grady could not be enforced.
“I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Mr Benson was acting as a bookmaker within the meaning of the legislation,” the magistrate said in his judgement.
“The finding that Mr Benson acted as a bookmaker is based upon the cumulative effect of the proved conduct and not upon any isolated feature of the relationship.
“In my opinion the relationship extended beyond the realm of private social wagering.
“Mr Benson’s claim fails not because the compromise agreement or guarantee lack contractual validity, but because the legislation denies legal effect to agreements of that character when they derive from prohibited gambling.”
Benson, who won a WSOP bracelet in 1996, was ordered to pay O’Grady’s costs.
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