More than 6,000 phone bets, $26.3 million in turnover and an unpaid account of $1.098 million ended with a stockbroker ordered to pay $1.43 million to the bookmaker who had extended him credit.
David Baxter, a licensed bookmaker, ran a telephone betting service from approved premises at The Rocks in Sydney. Between November 2020 and October 2022, stockbroker Robert Willis placed about 6,250 bets with him by phone.
The service operated on credit: Willis did not have to pay before each bet. He made payments from time to time as losses accrued, but when Baxter asked him to bring the account up to date, Willis refused to pay the outstanding $1,099 mil.
Willis then alleged that the gambling debt was unrecoverable and any agreement between them was unenforceable. He contended the arrangement contravenes NSW and federal gambling legislation and cross-claimed for the return of $1,45 mil he had already paid off for betting losses.
The bookmaker filed debt recovery proceedings in NSW Supreme Court. By the end of a four day trial before Justice Richard Cavanagh, the stockbroker-punter accepted that the arrangement included an implied term requiring him to pay betting losses but he still maintained it was void by reason of the alleged regulatory infringement and that the defences he had raised were valid.
The trial followed four earlier court arguments relating to evidentiary issues. Willis applied to give evidence from London by audio visual link on the basis that it was necessary for him to be in in the United Kingdom for work and that it would cost him $42,000 to fly home for the trial. That application was refused.
“He must have decided not to give evidence thereafter,” Justice Cavanagh observed in the context of that application having failed. “Little is known about the defendant.”
Willis could not prove his contentions regarding breaches of the relevant laws. Justice Cavanagh noted that it was up to him to prove the bookmaker’s conduct to have been unlawful. The bookmaker on the other hand – in seeking payment of a debt – was not required to prove compliance with every regulatory condition merely because the industry was regulated.
Willis had called no evidence to establish a breach of the provisions on which he relied.
That was enough to dispose of that part of the case but the court also found the way Baxter’s telephone business operated appeared to meet the regulatory requirements.
The calls were answered with “Dave Baxter, phone betting”. Registered bookmaker’s clerks accepted the bets at the approved premises, the bets were recorded, and Baxter issued weekly statements and received the payments. That Baxter used an internet bookmaker in a bet-back arrangement to cover his exposure, was irrelevant to the contractual relationship with the stockbroker.
Willis also relied on the Commonwealth ban on providing credit for certain interactive wagering services to customers physically present in Australia. But he did not prove that he was in Australia when the credit was provided. His own pleading instead said that, during the relevant period, he used the service from London, elsewhere in the United Kingdom or Queensland.
The court separately considered the exception for some telephone betting businesses with annual wagering turnover below $30 million. The evidence placed Baxter’s turnover well below that threshold in each relevant financial year, and Justice Cavanagh said the exception would have applied in any event.
There was another obstacle. Even if a breach of the Commonwealth provision had been proved, the legislation contemplated regulations declaring certain agreements unenforceable. No such regulation was identified. The Court would not have treated a contravention as automatically extinguishing the debt.
Baxter was awarded the unpaid debt plus $331,000 interest, for a total judgment of $1,430,000. Willis’s cross-claim was dismissed and he was ordered to pay Baxter’s costs.
Baxter v Willis (No 5) [2026] NSWSC 1059, Cavanagh J, 4 September 2026
