British bookmaker William Hill has been forced to email customers requesting the return of potentially millions of pounds paid in error. Affected accounts have been frozen, and withdrawals have been prevented, but some players have already withdrawn winnings. In some cases, prizes amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
William Hill action
One user on Reddit, PraiseTheSun1997, posted on X: "Hi, short story is my dad won roughly £250,000 two days (it was sitting there in his balance for a few hours before they blocked his account. They're claiming it was a malfunction and for him to return the amount he's withdrawn (about £2000)."
The user goes on to include an email received from William Hill.
The bookie points to its terms and conditions regarding erroneous winnings and states: "Under our Terms and Conditions (see the "Important Information" section at the start and clause 8), where a game malfunction or error occurs (including where incorrect winnings are credited or paid), we are entitled to void the affected transactions, correct player account balances and recover any funds that were paid out incorrectly."
While William Hill has offered to let players keep 11% of the prizes, similar historical cases have seen courts award the prizes to players in full.
The embarrassing incident comes at a time when parent company Evoke is undergoing a strategic review, with one possible outcome being the sale of the business. Bally's has emerged as a potential buyer, and any financial losses could have a knock-on effect on the sale price.
It's not clear exactly how much money has been mistakenly paid out, or how many accounts have been affected. But, other users have also claimed to have received similar correspondence for prizes of more than £100,000.
Similar cases
There have been similar cases in the past, and the results don't bode well for William Hill.
In March 2025, gardener Corrine Durber was awarded a £1m payout by the High Court. In 2020, Durber believed she had won just over £1m on the Wild Hatter game on Paddy Power.
The company claimed a programming error had mistakenly awarded her the Monster Jackpot when she should have only won the Daily Jackpot of £20,625.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Ritchie said: "Objectively, customers would want and expect that what was to be shown to them on screen to be accurate and correct.
"The same expectation probably applies when customers go into a physical casino and play roulette. They expect the house to pay out on the roulette wheel if they bet on number 13 and the ball lands on number 13."
Further, in 2021, Andy Green won a £1.7m jackpot playing Frankie Dettori Magic Seven Blackjack on the Betfred app. Despite initially accepting the prize claim, the casino later contacted Mr Green to say the prize had been awarded due to a software error.
They offered him £60,000 as a token of goodwill. Instead, Mr Green took the company to court, where he successfully had his claim heard.
While finding in favour of Mr Green, Mrs Justice Foster said that clauses relating to prize errors were not good enough and were "not transparent or fair and Betfred were not entitled to rely upon them".
