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

Pacing Mule · 09-01-2010 12:38PM #1

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 · 09-01-2010 12:43PM

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

ScumLord · 09-01-2010 12:44PM

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

Ghost Train · 09-01-2010 12:45PM

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 · 09-01-2010 12:48PM

Wow, peed off much?

Hank_Jones · 09-01-2010 12:50PM

That's pretty funny, gotta love those bookies.

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

lugha · 09-01-2010 12:53PM

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 · 09-01-2010 12:54PM

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

philologos · 09-01-2010 01:02PM

He has a case in court I reckon.

Mimikyu · 09-01-2010 01:08PM

This post has been deleted.

abouttobebanned · 09-01-2010 01:12PM

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 · 09-01-2010 01:13PM

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 · 09-01-2010 01:13PM

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 · 09-01-2010 01:19PM

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 · 09-01-2010 01:23PM

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 · 09-01-2010 01:25PM

They should be liable for their mistakes surely?

sold · 09-01-2010 01:29PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:14PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:15PM

lugha wrote: »

Possibly the somewhere was post #7? :pac:

Are you a gambler?

Kalashnikov_Kid · 09-01-2010 02:17PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:18PM

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

lugha · 09-01-2010 02:19PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:20PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:24PM

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

lugha · 09-01-2010 02:28PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:29PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:31PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:33PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:37PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:37PM

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 · 09-01-2010 02:42PM

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.

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

Comments