Ritz Club wins £2m roulette lawsuit; Maryland Live roulette ball assault

London’s Ritz Club Casino has won its lawsuit against a high-roller who refused to honor a £2m marker after claiming the casino had a duty to stop him from gambling.

Billionaire Safa Abdulla Al Geabury ran up a £2m gambling debt playing roulette at the iconic London VIP gaming venue over the course of a single night in February 2014. On Friday, the High Court’s Mrs. Justice Simler ruled that the 52-year-old Al Geabury’s testimony “lacked credibility and was riddled with inconsistency” and ordered him to pay the full amount of the debt plus interest.

In 2009, Al Geabury signed a self-exclusion form barring him from playing at the Ritz but he later signed a different form stating that he’d gotten his gambling problems under control. In court, Al Geabury claimed he’d been improperly lured back to the Ritz after a casino rep bumped into him at a football match and offered the high-roller a line of credit.

Justice Simler called Al Geabury an “intemperate witness” who had “failed to establish that he had any gambling disorder at any material time” and was therefore “the author of his own misfortunes.” Simler also noted that Al Geabury’s net worth was “in excess of US$1b” and thus his losses at the Ritz posed no significant threat to his ability to put food on the table.