TORONTO - More than 10,000 problem gamblers seeking $3.5 billion in damages against the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corp. lost their bid to have their case heard as a class-action lawsuit.

Justice Maurice Cullity ruled the 10,428 individuals who signed "self-exclusion" forms provided by the OLG between Dec. 1, 1999 and Feb. 10, 2005, weren't a common class because he believed their claims are based on their vulnerabilities and unique circumstances.

Problem gamblers sign the self-exclusion forms, which mean staff at all OLG gaming venues can deny them entry for an indefinite time so that the addicts can stop gambling, court heard.

Each gambler would have to pursue individual lawsuits, Cullity stated.

The class-action suit argued the gamblers suffered losses due to the OLG's alleged failure to exclude them from its venues.

"This is not a case where the amounts at stake are so small that the individual proceedings would be prohibitively expensive," Cullity wrote in his judgment. "The evidence is that nine individual actions have been settled to date with payments of $167,000 on average and another four actions are pending."

A Markham couple -- the representative plaintiffs in the class-action bid -- had lost their home due to the husband's "uncontrollable gambling," Cullity wrote.

After the now 50-year-old man lost his job at American Express in '02, he squandered his severance package and then his unemployment insurance benefits. In May 2004, the gambler signed a self-exclusion form at Woodbine, but he kept going back and wracked up devastating debts.

His lawyer, Hassan Fancy, said his client is pursuing this case for others who are too ill and too poor to take action.

He'll be appealing the judgment, Fancy said.

OLG spokesman Paul Pellizzari said that the judgment "supports our position that the self-exclusion is not a policing program but a self-help tool for those who want to deal with their problem gambling."