A compulsive gambler who lost more than £2 million in a disastrous five-month betting spree lost again today when the High Court threw out his claim for compensation and damages from the bookmaker William Hill.

Graham Calvert, 28, a greyhound trainer, had argued that the company had failed in its "duty of care" towards him by allowing him to carry on betting and even to open a credit account after he had asked it to stop taking his money under its "self-exclusion" policy.

It was a test case followed by bookies up and down the land who feared that a successful claim would open the floodgate to similar actions from out-of-pocket punters.

Today, however, Mr Justice Briggs ruled that the bookmaker owed Graham Calvert no duty of care despite the self-exclusion policy. The judge said that although William Hill did agree to exclude Mr Calvert from telephone gambling and failed to take reasonable steps to do so, pathological gambling would still probably have led to his financial ruin, but over a longer period of time.

In a summary of his ruling, Mr Justice Briggs said: "William Hill’s failure to take reasonable care to exclude him from telephone gambling . . . did not therefore cause Mr Calvert any measurable financial or other loss."

Mr Calvert sued William Hill after he said that he had lost not only money but also his wife, health and livelihood. Anneliese Day, who represented him at the High Court in Central London, told the judge at a hearing last month that William Hill should be held liable because it failed to operate its own policy.

She said that Mr Calvert, from Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, was hoping to establish in law for the first time that bookies do owe a duty of care in his circumstances. She described the scale of her client’s gambling as "staggering" — he had lost about £347,000 on one bet alone when he backed the US to win the 2006 Ryder Cup.

Miss Day said that Mr Calvert, who ended up borrowing money to fund his habit, was an accomplished greyhound trainer who ran the family business from a farm in Co Durham. He was once "comfortably well off" and had been involved in gambling for most of his life.

"The claimant’s descent from betting being a hobby to betting being a disorder appears to have commenced when he began betting by telephone," she said.

Mr Calvert had begun "staking larger and larger sums of money with increasing frequency and decreasing regard for the consequences".

Under cross-examination during the hearing, Mr Calvert said that he had never gambled because of financial need and did it for the "buzz". He agreed that he had given evidence lodged in court that between the years 2000 and 2005 he made £50,000 a year profit from gambling.

His downfall had come, he said, when bookies limited his bets on greyhounds — a sport he knew — and he started placing stakes on horses and golf.

In a statement after the judgment, William Hill described it as "a victory for common sense". "We stated from the outset that there was no case to answer to Mr Calvert and that no duty of care was owed to him in this instance," the company said. "During the trial Mr Calvert withdrew the allegations that he had been manipulated or enticed to bet."

Stuart McMaster, partner in the betting & gaming group at law firm Mishcon de Reya, said: "Some of the comments made by Mr Justice Briggs may lead to calls that the Government or the Gambling Commission should do more to protect problem gamblers; in particular, that the gambling industry should deal with problem gamblers in a unified manner.

"The judge also indicated that the current system, in which each bookmaker operates its own stand-alone social responsibility policy, may not go far enough to deal with problem gambling effectively."

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