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They have 'sold their technology' to 888.com but apparently not their liabilities.
Simply decided to refund all the stakes of this seasons football bets. 888.Com will honour the ante post horse racing bets but not the football (presumably as they looked at the league tables and figured they would be paying out a lot)
Unbelievable they can get away with this but Gambling Commission just waffling.
Simply decided to refund all the stakes of this seasons football bets. 888.Com will honour the ante post horse racing bets but not the football (presumably as they looked at the league tables and figured they would be paying out a lot)
Unbelievable they can get away with this but Gambling Commission just waffling.
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Replies: 39
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Was an awful firm IMO, I had a £30 maximum to bet on the Bundesliga.
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Rich Ricci, the former executive chairman of the defunct bookmaker BetBright, has said on Wednesday evening that while he can “understand why some customers are upset” about its decision to void all open ante-post bets, it was the “most equitable” way to wind up the business.
Many punters were also astonished that, having accepted a bet many weeks or even months ago, a bookmaker could unilaterally cancel it when, in many cases, the odds of a payout had improved significantly. One example seen by the Guardian involves a potential payout of around £26,000 for a total stake of £400 on a bet involving four football teams. Three head their division, while the other is a close second. The decision to close BetBright followed the sale of its technology to the rival firm 888.com in a £15m deal which was concluded on Monday. While 888.com said on Wednesday it would honour BetBright’s outstanding racing bets on Cheltenham next week, there is no sign as yet of any softening of BetBright’s line on ante-post football bets, where potential liabilities are understood to be significantly higher. Ricci, a former banker and also a leading owner who will have several fancied runners at Cheltenham next week, said on Wednesday evening the sale of BetBright to 888.com had been “unusual” and raised several difficult issues. “It was a very unusual transaction and I can’t remember one like it,” he added. “Only part of the company was sold. There have been situations where a bookmaker has gone bust and that’s dealt with in a certain way and others have been sold in their entirety, but in this case, we sold the tech platform, the engine of the business. They didn’t want the customer book or the other assets and liabilities. “We’re left with a situation which isn’t ideal, where the company doesn’t have the engine to carry on and trade and needs to be wound up in an orderly way. We talked about it a lot and decided this would be the most equitable thing to do for most people.”  |
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Disgraceful. They should have kept the field books, not refunded stakes on losers, and honoured bets on the winners. They should have been able to manage their positions so that any ante post liabilities were minimal anyway. They've a 15 million pound pot which should have been used towards honouring the bets as well.
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Unless they've tried to do a John Batten and fill the hod knowing they were going to disappear to help their cash flow situation earlier in the season
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Ricci should get the welcome he deserves at cheltenham next week.
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Absolutely shameful behaviour
Cheers for the heads as I didn't even realised this had happened and had an old email address on the account. Thankfully wasn't much in there and no antepost with them. |
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How the XXXXXX can they be allowed to trouser £15 million and get away without honouring those bets ? if this is the case the rules , laws whatever need changing for the better .
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I believe Ricci was being economical with the truth when he said 888 only wanted the technology section, but for them the company would have gone bust and everybody would have lost out.
Ricci could so easily have set-aside a portion of the selling price to accommodate the liability (if any) of the antepost book - this is not rocket scince, and a common practice in business. And, as a former investment banker I'd have expected him to have this in place rather than welched and voided them. |
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If I had a payout waiting, I'd be avoiding the toothless Gambling Commission and going to a solicitor. Surely a betting slip is a contract and that has to be honoured or you're a creditor.
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Ricci’s statements are nothing short of trying to justify fraud. His reputation is in tatters ; an odious individual.
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Didn't he work for Barclay's Bank ? The code of ethics he was used to probably makes the average bookie look like George Washington.
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lets hope all his horses running at cheltenham this week get stuffed but if he does get a winner hope they boo him in.
Bookies get away with murder from this sort of thing to banning and restricting bets,it really is about time something was done. |
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Ricci was the righthand-man for Bob Diamond (BD) the then head honcho at Barclays during the banking crisis who unceremoniously (only head of the big 4 banks to be asked to resign/not sacked by the board) by the then Governor of the Bank of England. He was not wanted by the new broom, but received many £ms for being the hatchet man at their investment division plus cheap equity in a generous payoff negotiated prior to BD's departure.
He knew he'd done a dirty on the punters hence the radio-silence and non-public media appearance to state/justify his decision; £15m is still a lot of "easy" money to a very rich man of "limited" and depreciative integrity. Nevertheless, not Benie Des Dieux please - she's the only one I've backed from connections at the Festival in 2 accas. |
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888 sponsor the club that had the hooligan locked up
more good publicity for them |
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I wouldn't say 888 are untrustworthy, but they must be based in Siberia with all the accounts they freeze.
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For some punters it will be worse than just not getting paid on a winner.
Imagine someone bet £500 on Liverpool @9/2 and then came on here at Xmas and layed them for a grand @Evs  |
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£500 refund and lay citeh at odds on .....
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Perhaps Ricci has not heard of the adage "my word is my bond" which is the motto in the City.
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Good post darlo, maybe selling the motherboard would do.
Cant believe what is going on. |
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Anyone who tied up their money in bookmakers that's been set up in someone's conservatory needs their head testing.
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Fishy though, where has this money gone, absolutely crazy firms can do this, at least honor the steaks
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As far as i'm aware all stakes are being refunded mega88, so those with bad positions bendit at the expense of those with good positions
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*benefit
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A bit of karma for the rancid cnt today....may it continue for the rest of the festival.
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I'd agree with those suggesting legal action.
Gambling debts legally enforceable these days, so that should work for both sides. |
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In general though, just another reason never to open mickey mouse bookies accounts, stick to exchanges.
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There are a large number of English football clubs with dodgy bookies displayed on their chests. Five or six of them won't be around this time next year.
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I'm very disappointed by the comment of the Gambling Commission about the despicable business decision taken by Betbright and his shareholders ie welching on "live" antepost bets - they have not understood the ethos and long term damage of betting, and in particular antepost betting.
If the banks (BBA) and travel agencies (ABTA) can contribute into an escrow account to secure monies or flights home for account holders" and customers respectively why can the bookmaking association not have a similar contingency facility available for punters from their member? If so, it will mean punters can bet with security, and the "cowboys" like the entity Ricci was a minority shareholder could be weeded-out and history. |
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Funds in uk regulated gambling companies are held in separate accounts. The better companies hold these in trust accounts. In any case the situation with betbright should have been customer money untouched, and the rest of the operations either solvent or otherwise. Given that the £15m 888 payment must have been available on top of any customer money, it is difficult to understand why "insolvency" was an possibility.
The gambling commission simply never fails to fail when it is presented with any challenge. They utterly refuse to treat punters as consumers of a financial service and with the rights that consumers of other financial services take for granted. |
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Gambling commission's response to me was to take legal action.
Anyone have any experience of this? |
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You would have to take action in Ireland. I understand that bets aren't enforceable there, so prob pointless.
Personally, I would be writing to my MP and asking him to get an explanation as to why, when bets are legally enforceable in the UK, the gambling commission is giving licences to companies that can ignore this (while displaying a UK licence). I would also ask him why the gambling commission didn't insist that customer funds were placed in trust funds, rather that simply in unprotected separate accounts. |
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https://calvinayre.com/2017/03/20/casino/irish-court-gambling-debts-unenforceable/
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https://calvinayre.com/2017/03/20/casino/irish-court-gambling-debts-unenforceable/
. |
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dave1357
Date Joined: 05 Sep 10 Add contact | Send message 20 Mar 19 14:49 You would have to take action in Ireland. I understand that bets aren't enforceable there, so prob pointless. Personally, I would be writing to my MP and asking him to get an explanation as to why, when bets are legally enforceable in the UK, the gambling commission is giving licences to companies that can ignore this (while displaying a UK licence). I would also ask him why the gambling commission didn't insist that customer funds were placed in trust funds, rather that simply in unprotected separate accounts. If there is no chance of going to court I would be going along this route and making as much noise as possible (and go non stop at the GC for answers). Somehow get everyone who has basically been defrauded together as one for starters, and then go to papers with some sort of number that has been welched on. This person whose wealth is multi multi millions of pounds should not be allowed to get away with not paying out due to some technicality. Someone else mentioned "company law" may have been broken elsewhere but I would assume they would have spent plenty on lawyers to get past this point? May as well go and get a license and lay Man City next season for a few million, stick it in the bank and get some interest on the money taken, and if they look like winning void everything around March time and keep the interest, and if they look like losing let the bets ride. Simple and easy cash.... |
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Punters are far too timid. Willing to jump through hoops to get their money, diddled out of winnings in shop and online, now this. Surely the bloke who has been conned out of a potential five figure sum should have bought a ticket for Cheltenham and had a robust exchange of views with this shyster.
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VICTOR is paying the antepost bets.
Great News |
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Ricci has (finally) got the message...he cannot just walk away from antepost sports bets; sports bets are totally different to banking where entities will collude and hide under streams of small prints screwing every penny of investors funds to feather their own nests.
Good news indeed for Betbright account holders; better late than never, I guess, but this must never be allowed to happen in the future. |
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but this must never be allowed to happen in the future.
And yet this decision was absolutely nothing to do with the utterly laughable Gambling Commission. |