If you’ve experienced harm or believe you’ve lost control of your gambling with Paddy Power, you may be entitled to submit a formal complaint and potentially claim back gambling losses. Many individuals across the UK are increasingly taking steps to seek redress from gambling operators, especially where self-exclusion failures, marketing breaches, or affordability failings are evident.
In this guide, we outline the basic steps to initiating a complaint against Paddy Power. For a detailed, legally informed walkthrough — including model complaint templates and strategies to avoid common Defence pitfalls — download the GamClaim.org eBook, built on years of claimant experience and litigation insight.
Step 1: Gather Your Evidence
Before you begin your complaint, you should collect and preserve key documents, including:
- Account statements from Paddy Power
- Bank transactions showing gambling activity
- Communication with Paddy Power (emails, chats)
- Records of self-exclusion or deposit limit requests
- Medical or psychiatric assessments (if applicable)
Organising your documentation early gives you a strong factual foundation and demonstrates that your complaint is made in good faith.
This step is most easily achieved by initiating a data subject access request (DSAR). You are legally entitled to copies of your data under UK data protection laws (UK GDPR). Please read our blog post about how to make a DSAR.
Step 2: Submit a Formal Complaint to Paddy Power
You should begin by sending a formal complaint directly to Paddy Power’s customer support or dedicated complaints department. Their full complaints procedure can be found in their Terms & Conditions under the section titled “Dispute Resolution”. Typically, the process involves:
- Writing a clear complaint outlining the issues and supporting evidence
- Waiting up to 10 days for a response (up to 8 weeks)
- Escalating to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) body if unresolved (up to a £10,000 dispute value. Social responsibility related complaints are not supported at the time of publishing)
⚠️ Important: Poorly written complaints can limit your legal arguments later or expose you to unnecessary Defence rebuttals. The GamClaim.org eBook contains sample complaints designed to include all necessary allegations while avoiding common legal missteps.
Step 3: Escalate to an ADR or Consider Legal Action
If you are unhappy with Paddy Power’s response, or they fail to respond within eight weeks, you can escalate the complaint to an independent Alternative Dispute Resolution provider, such as IBAS (Independent Betting Adjudication Service).
However, ADR is not binding on you, and many claimants ultimately choose to pursue legal action where they feel that their losses stem from serious regulatory or ethical failings.
Step 4: Understand Your Legal Position
Many customers of Paddy Power were not fully aware of the regulatory obligations placed on gambling operators to protect vulnerable individuals under Section 3 of the UK Gambling Commission’s Licensing Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP). These include duties around:
- Affordability and source of funds checks
- Self-exclusion enforcement
- Responsible gambling tools
- Targeted marketing to at-risk individuals
If these duties were breached, you may have grounds to argue that the operator failed in its responsibilities — and that those failings directly contributed to your gambling losses. However, such claims need to be positioned very carefully as current UK case law does not support a default Duty of Care argument and linking losses specifically to an operator (also known as “causation”) is hard to establish as existing case law, established in Calvert v William Hill (a 2008 judgement that was established prior to the significant advancements in the current digital age and national self-exclusion schemes, which did not exist at the time). Specific arguments would need to be made to prevent routine Defence arguments being made – our eBook guide outlines how to best navigate around these issues.
Step 5: Use the GamClaim.org eBook to Strengthen Your Complaint
Generic complaint templates or self-written emails often lack the legal structure necessary to survive scrutiny. The GamClaim.org eBook provides:
✅ Model complaints structured for maximum impact
✅ Key legal arguments to include (and what to leave out)
✅ Practical tips to avoid common legal traps
✅ Guidance for documenting psychiatric harm
✅ Tools to assess whether you have a viable claim
Take Control Today
The first step in reclaiming your losses is asserting your right to complain. By approaching the process with structure and support, you can increase your chances of success — whether your goal is a refund, compensation, or to hold the operator accountable.
Purchase our eBook to get started with proven strategies and real-life examples that are based on the successful outcomes we’ve observed.