Gamblers who are unhappy their bets were declared void after a blunder by Betfair have been advised to make a formal complaint to the gardai(Irish police).

Hundreds of punters were left fuming after their bets were voided because an error meant they were offered hugely inflated odds on a fancied runner at Leopardstown on Wednesday.

Betfair has blamed a "technical fault" -- but the Republic's Department of Justice said disgruntled customers can go to the gardai.

"Online gambling is a big part of why the legislation in this area is being developed," a spokeswoman said last night.

"As it stands the first port of call for any complaint should be brought to the gardai."

Last night a spokesman for the gardai said they were unaware of any complaints.

Betfair yesterday again attempted to explain the glitch which meant Voler La Vedette, an easy winner of the Christmas Hurdle, was able to be offered at 28-1 in-running (placing bets after the race has started).

This trade would have left one 'small-time' customer with a theoretical €27m payout and potential liabilities of €714m had the betting exchange not voided the in-running market.

Irish punters had piled on nearly €2m in bets at the 'wrong' odds and were set to win almost €56m before the error was spotted and all bets were declared void.


Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/republic-of-ireland/gamblers-told-to-contact-gardai-in-betfair-row-16096933.html#ixzz1i0uczGna

The fact that the glitch can be explained by the 32 bit,64 bit calc. giving an overflow or wrong answer in no way absolves betfair from being responsible. Backers are told it was obvious the price 29 was incorrect and that there was a glitch, but betfair have to manage each race or event and to leave the 29 on offer for as long as they did was negligent in the extreme. Is the quality of staff or their training really that poor.They have to have a shake up and get back to pre 2010 situation where mistakes where less common.The lack of PR over the past 48hrs tells us everything.

Yes Mourad went very short, i think he may have gone 1.03 (don't hold me to that though)

I didn't hear the interview with Tony C as not in UK, would still love to know why they didn't shut down the in-running markets for an integrity check to make sure this monumental fck-up couldn't recur.

Also I think the little matter of liability still remains and I hope there are complaints to the police/gardai/FSA/gambling commission as all we have is betfair's word for it.

And lastly, given the way they have dismissed so many petitions from punters that they have made a genuine error and can they void the bet, and these same punters have been told their mistakes are their own responsibility, it is hard to have sympathy with betfair as surely their system is their own responsibility. For instance, there is a bot which puts up 990-1 on so many lay markets hoping to catch out people making errors. Nearly all of us know this, betfair knows it for sure, but do they take these bets down which are clearly there to trap new players or drunk players or anyone who accidentally presses the wrong button. No they don't.

Another couple of million wiped off

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The papers want to hear from you too. Did you bet on VLV on Betfair? Did you lose money as a result of the voiding? Are you considering legal action? Are you NOT considering legal action? If you have anything to say on the matter then drop me an email - onthehushhush@gmail.com with the words "forward to work" in the message somewhere. I'd love a quick chat.

(I'm normally found over on the specials boards by the way, if you don't recognise the name)

We are rallying

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Has anyone got a link to the tony calvin interview on ATR,Please.

Henmaannnnn     30 Dec 11 13:06 
I would of thought Betfair would have insurance for their software if it was a technical error as they claim. They were probably better off paying out, claiming back on insurance, making news and press about Betfair good for a change and gaining more customers. They could of used this as a huge promotional oppertunity and wouldn't have to answer any question from anyone. Thus regaining their customers trust.
After all we all trust Betfair with our money.



baffling! gets it wrong twice, then gets it right

On its way G

bit shabby really....if they can't do something on time then PLEASE SAY. very unprofessional.

It's very shabby imo East.
I don't bet on the horses and therefore have no financial interest in VLV  but this case has issues that extend through every market on the site. I think punters in other areas are a little blind to this at the moment.

"And if there is a draw in any World Cup match, he will be found ordering champagne in the nearest hostelry to Betfair’s Hammersmith offices - and not leaving any time soon. "

Hoorah, he didn't quite strike me as the hooray Henry type but guess you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. Probably far too busy de-bagging the office junior or quaffing champagne to bother writing the statement.

I got the funny feeling Ghetto Joe that a group of solicitors 'the best money can buy' are writing the statement

When there was a rick made in my shop ie someone writing 7/2 instead of 7/4 a winner we'd settle the bet at S.P. Tho we were dealing in 20 quids not 20 million but i think that should be the fairest outcome. Pay everyone out at 2.98 the Betfair S.P.

Except the ones near the line ?

Surely those that actually took some sort of risk should be accomodated first ?

i have a gut feeling that the massive backlash they've had will see a u turn and some sort of payment will be made......they'll come out and say something along the lines of , something new has developed in the investigation and in light of this new information we feel it fair that payments are made as a matter of good faith.

of course they must be careful because an offer of some sort of payment may be construed in legal terms as an acceptance that they are liable and therefore should pay the lot....who knows though

Betfair Customer Services


2pm at Leopardstown on 28th December: An apology and an explanation from Stephen Morana
On Wednesday 28th December we had a major issue with our Exchange. We know how frustrating this is for our customers and again we offer our sincere apologies to all affected.
This note summarises all that we know of the issue, with all of the facts laid open.
The race in question was of course the 2pm at Leopardstown on 28th December, won by Voler La Vedette.
The race went off on time and there were no issues with the bets struck on the race before the start.
During the race, one bet was placed, and allowed onto the Exchange, laying Voler La Vedette for £21,474,836 at odds of 29. This would have left the customer with a maximum liability of close to £600m.
This bet was placed by one of our UK customers trading the race via our API or Application Programming Interface (bdp.betfair.com/) using an automated program (a “bot”). Their bot had developed a fault causing it to try and place a very large number of bets on the Exchange. These bets were large in size and mispriced. As you know, the Betfair system is designed to prevent customers betting unless they have the funds to cover their maximum liability. In this case, the customer had less than £1,000 in their account so none of these bets should have been accepted.
However, due to a technical glitch within the core exchange database, one of the bets evaded the prevention system and was shown on the site. This was an issue that was triggered because of a unique sequence of events that had never happened before.
The race continued and Voler La Vedette won. £822,614 of backers’ stakes were matched of the customer’s bet, resulting in a potential liability to the customer of £23m.
Once the race was completed, the market remained suspended such that no bets were settled and an investigation started.
We identified that this was an isolated incident specific to one account, which we immediately suspended. There were no further issues reported on any other markets on site and the site therefore remained open for business as usual.
At 4.41pm on the 28th of December, we announced that the in-play markets associated with this race would be voided due to technological failure in accordance with our terms and conditions. This is similar to the “palpable error” rule enforced by other bookmakers in the past.
We had to void both the win and place markets and, to be clear, we would have voided the race regardless of who had won and whether or not we had suspended these markets sooner. This is because the bet in question had significantly impacted both markets. We did not void those bets placed before the off because they had not been affected by the bet.
The Betfair technical teams continued to investigate the details of the fault and, having identified the issue, worked on putting a fix in place which was applied at 10.15pm on December 28th.
Following extensive testing, we can confirm that there have been no subsequent occurrences of this fault and we’ve taken steps to prevent its reoccurrence in the future. 
We have been criticised for not having suspended the market earlier but in reality, while our market operations team did realise that something had gone awry, the procedures they had in place dictated that specific checks needed to be made prior to suspending the market; hence the delay in suspension.
Again, I would like to clarify that the account in question has no commercial relationship with Betfair other than being a customer. Our reputation has been built on integrity and we have been pioneers in the industry in ensuring that betting is carried out in a fair and transparent manner. By making the voiding decision, I can assure you that this decision was not taken lightly and that we have implemented what we believe to be the fairest solution in these truly exceptional circumstances.
Since Betfair began, we have matched nearly half a trillion bets for our customers that have provided greater value than offered by the established bookmakers. This is the first time that we have ever experienced anything like this in all of that time which goes to show how robust and resilient the bet matching engine is and will continue to be.
Lessons have been learnt in terms of how quickly we need to respond, and how we need to communicate with our customers. We will continue to strive to deliver the consistently high standards that you have come to expect over the years.
I was personally devastated when this event occurred and would again like to take this opportunity to apologise for the regrettable customer and betting experience in this market.

Stephen Morana, Interim CEO, Betfair

NOPE

Btw way, a bot user with less than a grand in his account ?

That told us a lot more....
not