Our mistake - can't give you £7.8 million here's £31.78 instead

Pacing Mule

Source

Bookmaker Ladbrokes is refusing to pay out more than 7 million pounds to a man who gambled on a white Christmas across the UK, as the bet was accepted by mistake.

Cliff Bryant, 52, had placed two 5-pound accumulator bets that snow would fall on 24 towns and cities across the north of England on Christmas Day.
"We have apologised to the customer for any confusion and for mistakenly accepting an accumulator bet when our own rules state that only single bets are available on a market of this nature," said a Ladbrokes spokesman.
"We are happy to void the bets and to pay the customer his winnings on the relevant singles."
They however amount to just 31.78 pounds, rather than the 7.1 million Bryant was expecting.


The graphic designer from Southampton, who told the local Southern Daily Echo newspaper he was "gutted" and would seek legal advice, claims the first accumulator would have won him 4.9 million pounds, with the second adding 2.2 million.
"If I make a mistake in my work like that it costs me dearly and I think the offer should be a lot more generous than they have made," he told the paper.
Ladbrokes should have made their rules clearer, he added.
"They are one of the leading bookmakers in the country and I think they ought to do their homework a bit better in future."


Ladbrokes gave Bryant details of the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS), an impartial adjudicator on disputes that arise between gambling operators and their customers.


Danny Cracknell, a manager of the IBAS, told Reuters that Bryant had been in contact and they would be investigating the issue once he had completed the relevant forms.

I'd be sick if that happened to me.

SV

If the bet was accepted then they should be obliged to pay out..fair is fair!

ScumLord

For ****s sakes a bet is a bet! :mad:

Ghost Train

Hope he gets a better deal, the rule makes sense but they messed up and should offer some fairer compensation even to save face and avoid negative press

GrumPy

Wow, peed off much?

Hank_Jones

That's pretty funny, gotta love those bookies.

Have no problem taking everyones money, but when it comes to paying out...

lugha

SV wrote: »

If the bet was accepted then they should be obliged to pay out..fair is fair!

Maybe this is one of these urban myths things but is it not the case that there is no legal obligation on bookies ever to pay out? That's it's all gentleman's agreement stuff?
I'd still be miffed though!:mad:

hobochris

they ****ed up, they should pay out.

philologos

He has a case in court I reckon.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

abouttobebanned

Max payout on novelty bets is 250k. He would have known this, it's in the bookmakers rules. They also don't accept accums on novelty bets like this. Sometimes the boys and girls who work in bookies get so busy that they just take bets and move onto the next person. It's up to the person placing the bet to make sure that his bet is within the rules.

For example, if I went up to the counter and wrote out...500 win on Man Utd to beat Birmingham...and wrote down odds of 20-1...just because the woman takes the bet, doesn't mean that it's going to be honoured.

The chap hasn't got a hope in hell. And rightly so.

bonerm

I think I heard somewhere (possibly from a gambler!) that bookies technically aren't obliged to settle ANY bets (even correctly quoted ones). They only do so in the interest of keeping customers and continuing business.

philologos

They took the bet, therefore they are liable. If I were him I'd try settle outside of court and ask for about half of it, but I'd make it clear that it was their fault.

thee glitz

The bookies certainly don't have to honour this bet as an accumulator
as the components are all related. eg if it's 5/1 for snow in Manchester
and 5/1 for snow in Bolton, it doesn't mean the fair odds of snow in both
is 35/1. I reckon a fair payout for 2 £5 bets would be about 7-10k.

D-Generate

They aren't legally obliged to settle the bet. I am pretty certain that bookies can decide to pay out or not and cannot be legally charged if they don't pay out so long as they refund the bet. He won't win a thing in court but Ladbrokes for the sake of good PR might give him a token gesture amount of around £10k or so.

philologos

They should be liable for their mistakes surely?

sold

Hank_Jones wrote: »

That's pretty funny, gotta love those bookies.

Have no problem taking everyones money, but when it comes to paying out...

Exactly!!, They are like insurance companies, happy to take the money but when it comes to claiming they are happy to quote the small print. :):)

lugha

bonerm wrote: »

I think I heard somewhere (possibly from a gambler!) that bookies technically aren't obliged to settle ANY bets (even correctly quoted ones). They only do so in the interest of keeping customers and continuing business.

Possibly the somewhere was post #7? :pac:

bonerm

lugha wrote: »

Possibly the somewhere was post #7? :pac:

Are you a gambler?

Kalashnikov_Kid

D-Generate wrote: »

He won't win a thing in court but Ladbrokes for the sake of good PR might give him a token gesture amount of around £10k or so.

Exactly, they could have easily turned this in to a good-will gesture and they would get more than they payed out in free publicity. But Ladbrookes are well-known for being stingey...

If it is true that they stated that they accept singles only before he struck the bet, he doesn't have a hope. However, if he managed to place this online, there could be trouble...

However if a bookie in the UK just decides not to pay out for no good reason, they are liable to serious trouble from the Gambling Commission. But that is not the case here AFAIK.

cambridge7

Disgraceful. I'd bet Pado Weak (P.P.) would have paid out.;)

lugha

D-Generate wrote: »

They aren't legally obliged to settle the bet. I am pretty certain that bookies can decide to pay out or not and cannot be legally charged if they don't pay out so long as they refund the bet. He won't win a thing in court but Ladbrokes for the sake of good PR might give him a token gesture amount of around £10k or so.

Don't bookies have their own sort of code of honour where refusing to pay out on winning bets will lead to the defaulter being shunned?
It was a pretty dumb accumulator to give anyway. Clearly if snow fell in one English town it was more likely to fall in others as well?

slipss

SV wrote: »

If the bet was accepted then they should be obliged to pay out..fair is fair!

True, if you made a mistake writting out the bet there is no chance in hell they'd pay out. I'll never place a bet in Ladbrokes as long as I live. Someone should start a facebook group boycotting the fukkers.

stovelid

Perhaps they could have a settlement whereby the responsible employee becomes his lifelong slave?

lugha

bonerm wrote: »

Are you a gambler?

No. Never darkened the door of a bookie in my life . It seems it's true though. Pretty odd that the law permits gambling but there's no legislation to enforce payment.

lintdrummer

Jakkass wrote: »

They took the bet, therefore they are liable. If I were him I'd try settle outside of court and ask for about half of it, but I'd make it clear that it was their fault.

Wrong. The rules are clearly displayed on posters in shop. A cashier "accepting" a bet does not enter into any kind of legal or otherwise binding agreement of any kind. If there is a mistake on the bet, or it goes against the rules, that is solely the fault of the person who wrote the bet.

Betting shop employees take hundreds and often thousands of bets per day. If they were to check every single one for mistakes and rule breaking then an awful lot of people would not get their bets on in time. That is especially true these days with virtual races going off every 2-3 minutes and people running up with bets at the last second.

In the interest of fairness and the avoidance of bad publicity it would make a lot of sense for Ladbrokes to offer the man a decent payout of maybe 25000, but legally he hasn't a leg to stand on.

Browney7

lugha wrote: »

Don't bookies have their own sort of code of honour where refusing to pay out on winning bets will lead to the defaulter being shunned?
It was a pretty dumb accumulator to give anyway. Clearly if snow fell in one English town it was more likely to fall in others as well?

Thats why they aren't paying out because this is a related bet of epic proportions.

He ain't got a leg to stand on and Ladcrooks should pay what they owe him which is basically the singles. Bookmakers rules state "We reserve the right to correct any palpable error made by staff". It's an enormous fuck up, granted but he's lucky to be getting what they are offering at all.

Charlie

Chap knew exactly what he was doing.

Tried to exploit an oversight of a busy worker. Related contingencies are never accepted in accumulator bets, and I would be fairly confident that he would have known this.

Granted, Ladbrooks might have been able to do something for him. But then that only encourages people to try and exploit and bend the rules.

lintdrummer

Browney7 wrote: »

Thats why they aren't paying out because this is a related bet of epic proportions.

He ain't got a leg to stand on and Ladcrooks should pay what they owe him which is basically the singles. Bookmakers rules state "We reserve the right to correct any palpable error made by staff". It's an enormous fuck up, granted but he's lucky to be getting what they are offering at all.

100% correct. It's a contingent bet and as such it is void as an accumulator. They are settling the bet as it should be settled in accordance with the rules.
They should give him some decent compensation all the same. It's situations like this that give Ladbrokes a bad name and they should know better by now.

If this was Paddy Power there would be a picture in the paper of the man himself with said customer and a cheque for tens of thousands as they frollick in the snow in Northern England.

southofnowhere

There was a case in the a district court in the South East last year, a guy has pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage in the betting office of a well-known bookmakers on two separate occasions.

His issue with the company was they wouldn't honour a bet. Odds had been wrongly displayed by an employee on the last Rugby World Cup, basically they were all in reverse. i.e. England were 66/1 to beat Togo, who were 1/66. And France were 100/1 to beat Romania or whoever (I don't know the actual bets, but that's what happened).

Bets were then taken at those odds and he 'won' a couple of million. They are not liable for mistakes by employees who take bets they shouldn't. In fact they are covered in so many ways you wouldn't believe it (allegedly!).
He's not got or is getting a penny, gone down all routes he says, but hasn't given up by all accounts. He is currently studying the law and saving every week to pay for the windows in the bookies (couple of grand) as ordered by the court.

Edit: He really should have just told the girl in the shop her mistake I feel. And definitely not gone back there with a hurl when they wouldn't pay out!

lintdrummer

southofnowhere wrote: »

There was a case in the a district court in the South East last year, a guy has pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage in the betting office of a well-known bookmakers on two separate occasions.

His issue with the company was they wouldn't honour a bet. Odds had been wrongly displayed by an employee on the last Rugby World Cup, basically they were all in reverse. i.e. England were 66/1 to beat Togo, who were 1/66. And France were 100/1 to beat Romania or whoever (I don't know the actual bets, but that's what happened).

Bets were then taken at those odds and he 'won' a couple of million. They are not liable for mistakes by employees who take bets they shouldn't. In fact they are covered in so many ways you wouldn't believe it (allegedly!).
He's not got or is getting a penny, gone down all routes he says, but hasn't given up by all accounts. He is currently studying the law and saving every week to pay for the windows in the bookies (couple of grand) as ordered by the court.

Edit: He really should have just told the girl in the shop her mistake I feel. And definitely not gone back there with a hurl when they wouldn't pay out!

And that is exactly why the bookies are covered. If a mistake like this happens there will always be someone who will try to clean them out even though they know they are doing so in error.

cloneslad

After working in a bookies as a student for a few years I know for certain they don't have to pay out. A mistake can be made and if it's genuine then they don't have to pay it.

There is no way he should have gotten those odds as the bets are interlinked.

For example: If it snows in Dublin there is a good chance it will snow in Kildare he could place a fiver on in to snow in each place but he can not put them in an accumulater as the odds would be totally unfair on the bookmaker.

Ladbrokes, I would imagine will give him a few grand and try get some good publicity for themselves but there is a maximum level of payout in each bookmakers. You could go in and place €1 on an accumulater and predict the scores of every match in England which could net you tens of millions however my old bookies paid out a max of €200k on football and I think ladbrokes were €1million.

It was obviously a genuine error and as has been pointed out before, acceptance of the bet is not acceptance of liability. Ladbroke could probably just refund him his stake as he placed a bet that is void therefore they don't actually have to pay out.

lugha

cloneslad wrote: »

After working in a bookies as a student for a few years I know for certain they don't have to pay out. A mistake can be made and if it's genuine then they don't have to pay it.

But can they refuse if they bet is kosher? Do they have to make a case that there was an error in the bet? Can they say "we just aint paying"?
Also, would they pay out if an error was made in their favour? i.e. if some
one placed a 500/1 bet but it was wrongly written down as 500/1 on, would they honour it?

Mike 1972

bonerm wrote: »

I think I heard somewhere (possibly from a gambler!) that bookies technically aren't obliged to settle ANY bets (even correctly quoted ones). They only do so in the interest of keeping customers and continuing business.

Think you might be right.

Same way as a punter with a gambling debt cannot be sued. Hence bookie shops almost always insist on cash upfront (Otherwise a defaulting gambler could say it was all a mistake)

cloneslad

lugha wrote: »

Also, would they pay out if an error was made in their favour? i.e. if some
one placed a 500/1 bet but it was wrongly written down as 500/1 on, would they honour it?

when bets are taken all that we do is take a picture of it, it's a quck scan capture of what you have written.

we then have to manually type in your bet onto the system. so if you were to have written 'shergar 3:50 at kempton 33/1' and he was actually running in wolverhampton then it would make no difference as the computer would automatically put in the track name itself from the horses name.

If the odds were actually 3/1 not 33/1 then the computer would not allow us to enter the odds as they were never that price, the compuet would also override us entering 33/1 if it was actually 300/1 so it would favour the customer in this instance.

If the horse was 12/1 (for example) but the odds went down to 10/1 a few minutes before the bet was placed and you wrote 12-1, then we could over-ride the system and put in the 12/1 odds as the computer would beep at us and say 'odds changed 12-1 to 10-1 at 14:10pm'.

And if you wrote 12-1 but it went out to 14-1 then we would give you the better odds.

The people working in bookies aren't out to screw the customer through lies and falsifying bets, if we can make you happy and keep you coming back to place your bet with us rather than the competition then we can screw you through your gambling addiction and lack of skill in choosing a winning horse.

Remember, most bookies, before the recession at least, were paying each of their shops a yearly bonus based on the shops net profit. If we screw you out of a €50 in one bet and you get angry and go elsewhere then we lose the next 500-1000 euro you might have lost with us throughout the year.

it's better to take the hit of one small bet that you won instead of many years of your losses.

cloneslad

lugha wrote: »

But can they refuse if they bet is kosher? Do they have to make a case that there was an error in the bet? Can they say "we just aint paying"?

It all depends, as I said in the last post, bookies no that bad publicity will lose them customers. We have never refused to pay out on a bet that was placed on time and was 100% kosher.

However, if the bet was 100% kosher but above the maximum payout a customer can receive in a day then we could deny the customer the excess (if 200k is the limit and you win 500k then we will refuse the extra 300k).

Legally a bookmaker can refuse to pay out on any bet they want. placing a bet does not mean you enter into a legal and binding contract with the bookmaker. If the owner doesn't want to pay out then he/she doesn't have to do so, but they will have to give you back your stake otherwise they are just stealing from you.

Again it's highly unlikely such a thing would happen unless it was like the frankie detorri case where bookmakers went belly up on those bets.

Size=everything

He has no case.

When you make a bet you agree to their terms and conditions. Ladbrokes terms and conditions will state that they do not accept accumulators on novelty bets. As one of the terms and conditions were broken there is no contract. As long as there was no malice (i.e Ladbrokes knowingly taking the mistaken bet) they are in the clear.