Betting account on 18th birthday, dead at 22: inquest probes death of Melbourne man who gambled $895,000

A Melbourne man gambled $895,733 through online betting platforms in the four years between his 18th birthday and the day he took his own life, an inquest has heard. Victorian coroner Paul Lawrie’s inquest into the circumstances of Kyle Hudson’s death on 6 July 2021 began on Monday, and will interrogate whether betting companies accurately assessed the risk of gambling-related harm in the years prior to Werribee man’s death. The inquest would also examine the immediate circumstances and likely contributing factors to the Werribee man’s suicide, his personal and financial history and his online gambling history with Sportsbet, Entain and bet365, counsel assisting the coroner, Georgina Coghlan KC, told the court. In total, his online gambling turnover was $895,733 – with an overall net loss of more than $47,000, the inquest heard. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailDuring Monday’s hearing, Hudson was described by his girlfriend of seven years, Ashley Baker, as “a genuine good bloke” with a “quiet nature” who “would never swear or raise his voice at me”. But she said the construction management student also loved gambling, telling the inquest that he opened an online betting account with Sportsbet on his 18th birthday in 2017.“The only thing Kyle and I would argue over was his gambling,” Baker told the inquest. The first inkling Baker had that Hudson may have been struggling with betting was after his birthday when they were on holiday at Phillip Island and he was “unusually quiet”. She knew he had received $2,000 from his mother as a birthday gift, she said.“I queried him on what was wrong, and he told me he lost all his money and that he wanted to die. It was a really unusual thing for him to say, and I asked him not to say that,” Baker told the court.“I think this represented Kyle’s first significant [gambling] loss. This is really when Kyle’s habit turned bad.”Hudson had tried numerous times to reduce and limit his gambling, Baker said, including imposing limits on himself and taking breaks. He eventually gave her control of most of his money and the password to his Sportsbet account after he lost $20,000 – all his savings – in December 2020. The “cycle” was so frequent “it was almost normal”, Baker told the inquest. In the days leading up to his death, Hudson began asking her for money, speaking to her in a way that “felt out of character for him”, Baker said. She eventually sent him about $5,500 and told him that their relationship was over. When she saw in his account that he’d been betting, she felt he “had made his decision”. On Hudson’s computer, Baker said she discovered evidence that he had bet thousands of dollars in the last 24 hours of his life, and “had blown all his savings”. Hudson was betting an average of 4.6 times a day with Sportsbet and had triggered a behavioural alert on average every six weeks since he began gambling – including just two months after his 18th birthday, the inquest heard. Documents tendered in court showed that Hudson placed 999 bets – with an average stake of $107 – in the first six months of his activity with Sportsbet. Sarah Rizzo, Sportsbet’s director of customer operations, told the inquest that Hudson’s betting behaviour had triggered behavioural alerts on 37 occasions, all but one of which were due to him being aged 22 or under, and betting more than $3,000 in a rolling week. On many of those occasions, the company responded by sending Hudson “safer gambling” emails, which Coghlan told the inquest were almost identical in content and contained no specific information on “problematic deposits or concerns about how much someone might be betting”. At no time during his period gambling with Sportsbet did Hudson meet the company’s highest risk threshold. In some cases, Rizzo said, the email would have been sent after a more in-depth phone conversation. The detail of those conversations, however, was unknown as Sportsbet did not retain the call recordings. Hudson’s account was suspended five times, but in most cases was reactivated again after he called and told a safer gambling specialist that he was “betting within [his] limits”, the inquest heard. Lawrie asked Rizzo on Monday: “The overall view that is put forward is that Mr Hudson was a reasonably sophisticated gambler who was doing reasonably well and appeared to be consistent and in control?”Rizzo replied: “Yes, that’s correct.”With hindsight, she said she could “acknowledge that there may be times that Mr Hudson’s gambling did get away from him”. The company’s procedures have changed since Hudson’s death, Rizzo said, to the extent that such behaviour would now trigger 70 alerts, some of which would have resulted in blocking deposits and mandatory deposit limits. Representatives from Entain Group and Hillside, the owner of bet365, are scheduled to give evidence later this week. The inquest continues. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14 and Gambling Help Online is available on 1800 858 858. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie, and support for problem gambling can be found via the NHS National Problem Gambling Clinic on 020 7381 7722, or GamCare on 0808 8020 133. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org, and support for problem gambling can be found via the National Council on Problem Gambling on 1-800-MY-RESET