Was Betfair Fair?

[lipstick_xoxos]

Betfair Sportsbook has taken a lot of heat from customers after voiding all bets placed on a horse race at Leopardstown in the Republic of Ireland.

The race horse Voler La Vedette was the favorite at 13-8 odds, punters were offered odds of 28-1 during the race. Wagers over £1.6 million were placed on the in-race odds. The horse crossed the finish line in four and half lengths.

Betfair was liable for massive payouts after an incredible bet left a punter facing a £23 million payout. A total of £1,642,094 was matched at that price after the bet of £21.3m was offered resulting in a massive payout of almost £600m if it was all matched.

The company management investigated and discussed the matter for a three hours prior to cancelling all in-race bets.

Betfair spokesman Tony Calvin said: "It is an obvious error in the fact that the horse was 28 passing the line.

"To offer that kind of amount you would have to have £600 million in your account and anybody backing it at that price knew that something was wrong."

"It is clearly a technical failure that somebody somewhere was able to place a bet with that liability. Clearly nobody in their right mind would want to strike a bet like that."

The investigation continued Wednesday night and Calvin added: "In response to a number of customer questions on this matter, we would like to clarify that the account in question has no commercial relationship with Betfair other than being a customer.

"An investigation has revealed that this was due to an obvious technical failure, which allowed a customer to exceed their exposure limit," Betfair claimed.

"In accordance with our terms and conditions, all in-running bets on this race, both win and place, will be made void.

"We fully appreciate the dissatisfaction this will cause many customers, and apologise for a very poor customer and betting experience."

What are your views on this? If the horse would of lost do you think Betfair would refunded the bet money "due to technical error?

Lips

[Feelin froggy]

I would like to think so but something tells me it wouldn't happen until it was brought to their attention but let one player make a big deal out of it. Bad press would make them correct it. I suppose the payout was too high on this race to let the bad press affect their judgement on this one. What I'm wondering is if they would have voided all bets if the payouts were lower. Ya think?

And by the way, totally not fair.

[lipstick_xoxos]

I think that is the whole point froggy, this player wagered an astronomical amount of money and Betfair didn't catch the error cuz there is a betting cap. But if the horse lost i bet ya they would of kept this players money without a peep said.

Lips

[Johnny Karp]

This doesn't look right at all... Even if it was a technical glitch that is still BetFair's fault and not the players' fault. So I guess the right thing to do was to pay the winnings but...

[blueday]

That's one hell of a payout if they hadn't voided the bets...but I don't see how they can void the bets just because they may have to payout a huge sum of money.  They should have laid it off to cover themselves.

blue