As fer the Law on gambling debts not being recoverable by law;
An old acquaintance of mine known as 'Buffalo' fer his big stature is a total gambling addict, a builder by day (some times) and a gambler by night, to this day he still rapes the drunken students by night in the city casino playing sober against the drunken students in Texas Hold 'em.
Anyway a few years back Buffalo was punting away on the horses in a small town outside of Cork and his Luck was in big time on the day and he ended up taking away about 46K outta PP, some of it paid in cash but the most of it paid by cheque.
All was good, Buffalo lodged the cheques in to his account and a few days later when all the cheques had cleared, he went back to the same town and the same PP office. The PP staff were only too delighted to see him walking in through the door, thinking that they might just get their 46K back.
Buffalo punted away in Grands on everything and anything, losing a few quid, winning a few quid and all cash over the counter, then he suggested to the PP manager of the shop to have it on credit rather than be counting out the cash all the time, she agreed.
Buffalo lost about 50K (On credit) that afternoon and walked out the door !