Dismayed Evoke Jackpot Winners Tell Their Tale on UK TV

by Roy Brindley, 8 May 2026

Jackpot winners who were denied their winnings have started appearing on mainstream TV as the size and cost of Evoke’s online casino glitch becomes clear.

The news is not good for William Hill.

Key Facts:

• 35,072 jackpots were paid out during a 40-minute ‘error period’ on Evoke casino sites.
• Jackpot winners have gone on TV to tell their stories.
• The operator has been offering relatively small goodwill gestures.
• Law firm suggests a group action is being considered.

The fallout from the technical glitch that saw William Hill and 888casino payout erroneous jackpots during a short daytime period in mid-March continues to land. The cliché statement that all news is good news may not apply to Evoke, the site’s owners, who are in the public’s firing line.

Some news sites are now quoting “an internal report” which they say states “35,072 jackpots were paid out whilst the error was active.” Before this, the figure for a similar period, around 40 minutes, had been 518.

Initially, speculation suggested hundreds of thousands of pounds in jackpots could have been paid in error. Now, analysts and media outlets are estimating the erroneous credits could have reached tens or even hundreds of millions of pounds.

Millionaire Winning Mother of Two Offered £39

UK television has done nothing to ease Evoke’s embarrassment. Highlighting the effect of the phantom wins, a single mother of two appeared on popular show, Good Morning Britain, to explain how she felt after William Hill told her a £1.27 million jackpot would be in her bank within 72 hours.

Viewers listened as 27-year-old Claire Ainsley heartbreakingly said: “I had planned out for my kids to go on holiday, to get a house for them. I couldn’t believe it. I got so emotional. I rang my family, I told everyone. I was over the moon.” She later explained that William Hill offered her £39 in compensation.

A second victim of the Evoke glitch later appeared on the show after Good Morning Britain (GMB) had described themselves as “inundated from viewers with similar issues.” This time the phantom prize was £145,000.

After we spoke to Claire Ainsley last week, who believed she'd become a millionaire, only to find out it was a glitch on the William Hill app, we have been inundated from viewers with similar issues.

Lee Oliver and Matt Cook believed they had won £193,000 between them while… pic.twitter.com/Q1jskulzKT

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) April 30, 2026

The player, Matt Cook, who successfully withdrew £33,000 of his £145,000 ‘win’ but is being asked to repay it, told the GMB host Richard Madeley that he had told his cancer-suffering mother he was going to pay off her mortgage.

“You think that you’ve won all this money. You can do a lot of things for a lot of people. It’s not just about yourself anymore; it’s the broken promises,” he explained.

“You know, you promised other people, the mother of my children, I can help you do this now, I can help you do that. Set college fees up for your children, do all these things and for them to turn round and say no, you can’t do these things, in fact, you’re now in debt to us, you have to pay the money back.”

Winner Loses Prize and Suffers Heart Attack

Another player who managed to withdraw £33,000 before her account was suspended was Gemma Bradley from Wakefield. She believed she had won more than £47,000 and had made plans to pay off her mortgage.

In a YouTube video, she explained that she was later contacted by William Hill, which initially asked for the money to be returned and later offered her 11% of the £33,000 she had withdrawn.

Elsewhere, the BBC has reported on the case of John Riding from Burnley, who believes the stress of a £285,000 jackpot win that was later blocked led to him suffering a heart attack. “It just absolutely destroyed me, and I just went off balance and had a resulting heart attack,” he told the news site.

The 78-year-old added: “When you’re ecstatic, and then you get flattened, it’s like being hit with a sledgehammer because your mind goes berserk.” A day after the ‘jackpot’, William Hill emailed the customer to inform him that they had adjusted his betting account to reflect a £15.40 win.

Goodwill Now Stretching From £1,000 to 50% of Money Back

Other publicised cases include a £330,906.96 win for a Bedfordshire postman. Stephen Harvey, 53, from Dunstable, told the JVS Show on BBC Three Counties Radio that he had “started looking for properties and everything.”

His email from William Hill stated he could keep an earlier £200 in winnings as a ‘settlement sum’ and added the money would be “accepted on a goodwill basis and strictly without any admission of liability by either party.”

A Facebook page titled ‘William Hill Winners’ features numerous people claiming five and high-end six-figure wins. Some of its members state they are now being offered 50% of the sums they successfully withdrew – meaning they need to return £16,500 to the online casino.

Others, who did not successfully withdraw any winnings, say they are being offered £1,000 goodwill gestures. One poster stated: “I was called yesterday [by William Hill] but refused to speak and asked for email communication instead. I was told they cannot send emails right now, which seems odd.”

Ellis Jones Solicitors, which describes itself as a law firm that “specialises in handling gambling-related claims and complaints” and boasts of recovering £6 million in losses from gambling firms, says it has been contacted by around 50 ‘winners’ who are considering a group action.