Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\nDuring Monday\u2019s hearing, Hudson was described by his girlfriend of seven years, Ashley Baker, as \u201ca genuine good bloke\u201d with a \u201cquiet nature\u201d who \u201cwould never swear or raise his voice at me\u201d. 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing Kyle and I would argue over was his gambling,\u201d Baker told the inquest.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cunusually quiet\u201d. She knew he had received $2,000 from his mother as a birthday gift, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d Baker told the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this represented Kyle\u2019s first significant [gambling] loss. This is really when Kyle\u2019s habit turned bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 all his savings \u2013 in December 2020.<\/p>\n
The \u201ccycle\u201d was so frequent \u201cit was almost normal\u201d, Baker told the inquest.<\/p>\n
In the days leading up to his death, Hudson began asking her for money, speaking to her in a way that \u201cfelt out of character for him\u201d, 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\u2019d been betting, she felt he \u201chad made his decision\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Hudson\u2019s computer, Baker said she discovered evidence that he had bet thousands of dollars in the last 24 hours of his life, and \u201chad blown all his savings\u201d.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 including just two months after his 18th birthday, the inquest heard. Documents tendered in court showed that Hudson placed 999 bets \u2013 with an average stake of $107 \u2013 in the first six months of his activity with Sportsbet.<\/p>\n
Sarah Rizzo, Sportsbet\u2019s director of customer operations, told the inquest that Hudson\u2019s betting behaviour had triggered behavioural <\/strong>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.<\/p>\nOn many of those occasions, the company responded by sending Hudson \u201csafer gambling\u201d emails, which Coghlan told the inquest were almost identical in content and contained no specific information on \u201cproblematic deposits or concerns about how much someone might be betting\u201d. At no time during his period gambling with Sportsbet did Hudson meet the company\u2019s highest risk threshold.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Hudson\u2019s account was suspended five times, but in most cases was reactivated again after he called and told a safer gambling specialist that he was \u201cbetting within [his] limits\u201d, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n
Lawrie asked Rizzo on Monday: \u201cThe 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rizzo replied: \u201cYes, that\u2019s correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
With hindsight, she said she could \u201cacknowledge that there may be times that Mr Hudson\u2019s gambling did get away from him\u201d.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s procedures have changed since Hudson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Representatives from Entain Group and Hillside, the owner of bet365, are scheduled to give evidence later this week.<\/p>\n
The inquest continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Melbourne man gambled $895,733 through online betting platforms in the four years between his 18th birthday and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":789491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-789490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116557800312985010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}