Punter sues bookie over Rangers bet

A MAN suing bookmaker Coral after it refused to pay him £250,000 on a bet Rangers would be relegated says that he placed the wager because he knew the club was broke.

Albert Kinloch, 72, placed the £100 bet at 2,500/1 that Rangers would be relegated months before the club went bust and was kicked out of the Scottish Premier League.

He placed the bet in late 2011, when Rangers were second in the league.

In February 2012, the Ibrox club announced it was going into administration and was deducted ten points before it was liquidated and a new company formed. Rangers were then relegated to Division Three.

At the Court of Session yesterday, former bookie Mr Kinloch, of Glasgow, said he placed the bet because ‘it became common knowledge Rangers were going skint’.

He told the court he had followed media reports on Rangers’ precarious financial position and formed the opinion it was in serious trouble, ‘a dead club walking’.

He claimed he remembered Gretna FC being relegated when they could not complete their fixtures and went into liquidation. So he went into a Coral’s in Tollcross, Glasgow, and placed the bet. Coral is defending the action. Questioned by Craig Sandison, QC, for Coral, Mr Kinloch said there had been nothing underhand about the bet and that he was not ‘a mug punter’.

The case continues.