The tale of Graham Calvert, a successful greyhound trainer who developed a serious gambling problem, is a remarkable one both for the size of his losses and the fact that he is breaking new ground in attempting to sue bookmakers William Hill for over £2 million for accepting his bets.

Bookmakers are keenly aware of concerns over problem gamblers and the larger firms have policies which enable punters to "self-exclude" themselves from betting with a firm. This consists of the punter ringing up the bookmaker and requesting that he or she has no further bets accepted. That is precisely what Calvert did in May 2006, after racking up hefty losses with William Hill, yet the bookmaker allowed him to open another account just two months later on which he lost a further £2 million - the amount that he is now suing them for, claiming that they failed in their "duty of care".

While it may seem laughable that a punter can sue a bookmaker for losses - there must be thousands out there who would love to do the same thing - this is a landmark case that will test the bookmakers' resolve in helping problem gamblers. Plenty of punters bury their heads in the sand and deny that they have an issue to deal with, but in this instance Calvert identified himself as having a problem but was still subsequently allowed to sustain his losing run.

If a bookmaker issues a press release saying that they have accepted a large bet - such as Calvert's £347,000 on the United States to win the last Ryder Cup (they lost) - you can be pretty sure that they know the punter well and are confident that, even if this bet is successful, he will quickly lose the money back. If any gambler whose judgment they respected requested a bet of such a size, the bet would not be accepted, with the bookmaker politely offering to take a small fraction of it and either refusing the rest or offering shorter odds about the outcome.

Bookmakers have a duty to their shareholders to make money and will obviously be keen to take the bets of high-rolling customers in a legitimate bid to boost their profits. However, with the strong recent growth of the gaming industry in Britain, they also need to be seen to do the right thing by punters with a gambling problem.

At this stage, Calvert probably feels that he has nothing left to lose. The outcome of this case will be keenly awaited by punters and bookmakers alike.

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