A 75-year-old punter is celebrating a £40,948 payout, despite a ruling that the bookmaker in question was not obliged to pay him.Richard Lewis, a regular at Betfred’s shop in Port Talbot, wrote the names of five horses on his slip on 7 July and all won, at odds including 20-1, 14-1 and 10-1, but he failed to add the specific instructions that would have made it clear that his bet was an accumulator involving all the selections, instead of just a series of single bets.
Having been told by shop staff that his bet was successful and that he would be paid in full when sufficient funds arrived the following day, Lewis returned to the shop to be told that his payout would be just £147. Betfred’s security department had intervened in the meantime, having decided that the bet could only be paid out as five single bets without the accumulator.
Lewis raised the matter with IBAS, the betting arbitration service, which finally ruled against him last Friday. In its verdict, IBAS took the unusual step of saying it had engaged in “extensive correspondence with Betfred, suggesting that this might be a situation where they would feel able to settle the bet on the customers’ stated intentions … rather than strictly according to their rules. They have, however, declined.”
However, the Lewis family was visited by Betfred’s regional manager over the weekend and told that he had only just heard of the case and would be arranging payment. A Betfred spokesman said the decision had been taken “after a senior management review” and added that Lewis would also be invited to the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March, a race that the firm sponsor. The spokesman offered no further detail on why Betfred had made Lewis wait so long for his money, only to pay him days after a ruling that it had applied its rules correctly.
Lewis’s daughter, Linda, said her father was “just glad that Betfred have made the right decision. He would like to thank everyone for their support.” Lewis himself was not available to discuss the bet; his family report that he has multiple health issues and is no longer able to hear sufficiently well to use the phone.
The Lewis family has been assisted during the dispute by Paul Fairhead, an experienced punter who describes himself as “a passionate believer in fair gambling” and wishes to offer himself in support of any gambler who feels their bookmaker has let them down. Fairhead feels that the case, although resolved, shows a flaw in the existing system.
“I think it should be of concern to punters everywhere that the industry’s arbitrator would appear to have some serious flaws in its terms of reference,” he said. “IBAS was able to identify Mr Lewis’s intentions but was unable to enforce a payment.
“I would like to see some kind of review, aimed at the protection of punters who have been treated unfairly.” Fairhead noted that Lewis would have retained the right to pursue payment through the courts, despite having submitted to the arbitration process, but added: “I don’t see why people should have to go to court.”
Fairhead can be contacted through Twitter, where he set up an account called @BoycottBetfred at a time when it appeared unlikely that the firm would pay Lewis.
Lewis’s regular bet involved staking £2 each-way on five horses and then covering them in a 50p each-way accumulator. On the day in question, he specified the five each-way singles but made no mention of an accumulator; however, he staked a total of £21, his normal total, rather than the £20 that would have been necessary for the five singles.
In support of his claim, he provided IBAS with evidence of more than 90 previous occasions when he had placed identical bets, involving five horses backed each-way in singles and an accumulator to a total stake of £21. His argument to IBAS was that his intention on this occasion was clearly to place the same bet. He claimed that the shop manager, who knew him well, agreed with his position but the manager in question has since left Betfred to work for a rival firm and IBAS did not have the benefit of his testimony.
The IBAS verdict states that its terms of reference require it to refer to what a customer has written on their slip and to the rules of the particular bookmaker, “rather than what we think a customer may or may not have intended”. Betfred argued during the dispute that, under its rules, this was a clear case of overstaking and that the excess £1 should therefore be divided among the stated selections, increasing each of the five single bets by 20p; IBAS agreed that this was a correct application of Betfred’s rules.
As an intriguing aside, the IBAS verdict notes that the overstaking rule can only be applied because Lewis specified instructions for the each-way singles. Had he simply listed the names of the five horses with a total stake of £21 and no further instructions, the bet would have been ruled to be a £21 accumulator, taking his theoretical return past £2m, though Betfred shops offer a maximum payout of £500,000 for horse racing bets.
Pressed as to whether this case had exposed a fundamental problem with IBAS’s terms of reference, a spokesman for the arbitrator said: “IBAS declines to comment on specific adjudications or how they were reached”.
The horses involved in Lewis’s bet were Mister Wiseman, Argaki, Va’Vite, Foreign Rhythm and Pobs Trophy, all of which started at odds shorter than he was able to take when placing the bet. Foreign Rhythm scrambled home by a head, Va’Vite by a neck.
source : www.theguardian.com
