Betika loses appeal against gambler in Sh500,000 jackpot prize
Sport betting company Shop and Deliver, trading as Betika, has lost its appeal to challenge a decision by the court requiring them to pay its client David Juma, a gambler, sh 500,000 won in a jackpot bet.
High court Judge Samuel Mohochi has in his ruling summarily dismissed the appeal by the company saying it lacked sufficient grounds to overturn the finding of the small claims court.
As per the ruling, the grounds of the appeal, filed on September 12, 2023 raised factual weight to overturn the judgement.
“I do find that there is no sufficient ground for interfering with the decree, part of a decree or an order appealed against he may, notwithstanding section 79c, reject the appeal summarily,” ruled Justice Mohochi.
He dismissed the appeal while ruling an application by the company in which it sought extension of time to deposit the decretal sum of money in a joint interest earning account within 30 days after claiming to have appealed the judgement.
The company further sought orders to stay execution of the judgement delivered by the small claims court on September 15 on pending hearing and determination of the appeal it had filed before the court.
Nakuru resident magistrate Edward Oboge had in his judgement directed the company to deposit the sum within 21 days as a condition to grant stay of the judgement pending appeal.
However, the company failed to do so within the period and applied for the extension of a 30-day period through an application dated November 21.
In its application the company claimed the delay was beyond their control as it was caused by the delay in the bank’s processing of the account opening forms.
The court heard that the company was willing to deposit the money but because of the bureaucratic processes at the bank, the account could not be opened within the stipulated time.
It argued that failure by the court to grant the stay of the judgement would jeopardize the appeal that it had filed.
The application was however opposed by the gambler who termed it incompetent and an abuse of court process.
He persuaded the court to dismiss the application with costs.
The judge in his ruling noted that there was no evidence presented in court to support the assertion that the bank had caused the delay. According to court , if the delay was caused by the bank’s administrative challenge, then the parties should have approached the court in unison to seek for the extension.
Justice Mohochi ruled that the High court had the powers to summarily reject the appeal once the judge has perused through the judgement and finds no ample reasons to interfere with the decision of the subordinate court.
The gambler David sued the company after it failed to pay him the Sh500,000 he had won after placing a Sh10 bet.
Juma in his court papers said he and his brother Collins Kizito placed a bet for Sh500,000 lottery on Betika’s 8 game sababisha jackpot using Sh10 on February 18.
The two scrutinised the 8 matches that had been advertised by the betting firm for prediction before placing a bet which emerged correctly.
However, they were shocked when they logged into the website to discover that the company had erroneously indicated that one game was not correctly predicted.
They decided to follow up with the company to try and correct the error but their efforts proved futile.
The gambler lamented spending time, money and energy to analyse the matches only to be betrayed by the company which shortchanged him.
However, the small claims court in its judgement on August 16 ruled the gambler had won and directed the company to pay him his prize money.