Man Loses £20,000 In Casino After Money Wrongly Put Into His Bank Account

A bank couldn’t have made a more foolish mistake after accidentally transferring £20,000 into the bank account of a young gambling addict, who had just had a row with his girlfriend and was consequently taking a short getaway break in Amsterdam.
Luke Aldridge, 26, of Fifth Avenue, Ketley Bank, Telford was in the Dutch capital on June 19th 2009 when he made the startling discovery after checking his Abbey National bank account.
The temptation of having £20,000 suddenly transferred into his account by ‘DA Building Construction,’ a source he had never heard of previously, proved too much for Aldridge who then proceeded to go on a monumental gambling spree.
As prosecutor Mr Robert Edwards explained: “That company had not authorised funds into that account but the Crown Prosecution Service do not put the case that the defendant has responsibility for that transfer. On that day, June 19, £18,290.20 was withdrawn from the defendant’s account, the majority in casinos in Amsterdam.”
Luke Aldridge then proceeded to demonstrate what a hopeless gambler he was by losing the money in just a couple of hours of playing blackjack and poker in the Dutch casinos.
After pleading guilty to eight charges of theft, Shrewsbury Crown Court on Friday sentenced Aldridge to a community order for 24 months and 150 hours unpaid work.
Summing up the case, Judge Mark Eades said: “This is a case with a degree of bizarreness. One could well understand why you could not resist the temptation to take money from your account. But that is not an excuse.”