Billionaire gambler Tony Bloom denies owing hundreds of thousands to former colleague

[ad_1] The billionaire proprietor of Brighton & Hove Albion soccer membership has confirmed his syndicate positioned hundreds of thousands of kilos value of bets via the playing accounts of the Reform UK adviser George Cottrell.

The admission is available in a doc filed to the excessive courtroom by Tony Bloom, who additionally admits that he, Cottrell and a former worker, Ryan Dudfield, had an settlement below which winnings had been on account of be cut up between them.

Bloom additionally claims that Dudfield, who's suing him and his syndicate, shouldn't be owed any additional share of the hundreds of thousands made out of this association.

In his defence to the authorized motion, Bloom says Dudfield obtained a £60,000 “nuisance cost” to settle any claims he had in opposition to him in July 2023, having already “cashed out” his place in December 2022.

Bloom, the courtroom doc says, had no obligation below the settlement to pay Dudfield and was entitled to anticipate he look to Cottrell.

Bloom’s defence stated: “The impact … of the July 2023 settlement was to settle any and all claims that the claimant could have in opposition to Mr Bloom and, accordingly, coated the claims introduced in these proceedings. The moment proceedings are additionally introduced in breach of the covenant to not sue.”

Dudfield says he's owed $17.5m (£13.1m).

The dispute has shone a lightweight on the largely hidden operations and huge sums of cash that energy one of many world’s most profitable betting operations.

Bloom is almost all shareholder and chair of the Premier League membership Brighton and has made his fortune from playing.

Dudfield, an expert gambler who used to work for Bloom, launched his former boss to Cottrell. He's pursuing a case in opposition to Bloom and his syndicate, claiming that he's owed probably hundreds of thousands of kilos from an association they reached through which bets had been positioned for Bloom via Cottrell’s accounts

Within the 17-page response to Dudfield’s claims, Bloom says: “It was an specific time period of the settlement that Mr Cottrell would enable Mr Bloom to put bets on a sure playing account in Mr Cottrell’s title, described by Mr Cottrell as a ‘hedging account’ which he held with [the gambling platform] Sportsbet.io.”

The syndicate was entitled to a 60% share, and Dudfield and Cottrell 40% between them. Dudfield and Cottrell had been entitled to 7% and 33% respectively, the doc says.

It alleges Bloom’s syndicate made hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from betting utilizing accounts within the title of Cottrell; $3.7m in web winnings from August to December 2022.

In his declare filed final 12 months, Dudfield alleges he thought the association had ended on the finish of 2022 as a result of he believed Cottrell had ended his ties with Bloom’s syndicate.

However Bloom’s defence says the syndicate continued to put bets via Cottrell up till October 2025, garnering one other $2.4m in web winnings. It additionally claims Dudfield had no settlement for any charge or fee for enterprise between him and Cottrell after 2022, and that if Dudfield is owed any cash, it's for Cottrell to pay him.

One other key level of competition between Dudfield and Bloom seems to be over whether or not or not the settlement with Dudfield, Cottrell and Bloom coated a variety of Cottrell’s betting accounts.

Only one account belonging to Cottrell was used earlier than Dudfield “cashed out”, in line with Bloom’s courtroom doc. 5 others had been utilized by Bloom solely afterwards and he denies these embody an alleged account on the on-line betting platform stake.com.

The courtroom doc confirms that a number of obvious third events had been utilized by Bloom’s syndicate to put bets via “unique accounts”. However there was no “commonplace observe” for a way they operated and so they weren't known as “secret”, in line with the defence.

Bloom doesn't admit the syndicate is “secretive”, however confirms it retains “info boundaries” between departments and people who place bets at Starlizard Consulting, which operates the syndicate, in line with the doc. It's “typically profitable” however that it generates £600m a 12 months – a declare made by Dudfield – is an “exaggeration”, the defence says.

Bloom’s defence doesn't handle a number of the allegations, together with claims that footballers and businessmen had been used as frontmen for the betting syndicate.

Bloom’s defence notes that in 2018, after Dudfield left employment at Starlizard Consulting Restricted however earlier than the settlement involving Cottrell, he was given £405,000 to settle a debt, which was set in opposition to his share of future winnings from the syndicate, which amounted solely to £102,000.

Membership of the syndicate was a perk generally given to staff, although there are additionally non-employee members, in line with the defence.

Bloom agreed through Ian McAleavy, an worker at StarLizard, to enter into a brand new settlement with Dudfield in 2022, after he launched him to Cottrell.

Excessive-profile, profitable gamblers can discover themselves successfully shut out of betting websites due to the dimensions and frequency of the bets they place. This implies “whales” are sometimes deployed to put bets on their behalf. As somebody identified for high-stakes betting, Cottrell has the profile of a “whale”.

Nonetheless, Bloom didn't require so-called “unique accounts” that used different folks’s identities, and far of his betting doesn't “contain using such accounts”, in line with the courtroom doc.

Legal professionals appearing for Cottrell stated when approached final 12 months about Dudfield’s authorized motion: “Our shopper shouldn't be a celebration to these proceedings however considers it could be inappropriate for him to touch upon them within the media.”