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#128794 - 02/17/08 06:06 PM

Errors at SNG tables at Betfair

BOOSHIFIED
Sophmore

Registered: 11/07/06
Posts: 85
Loc: California

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Feb 02, 2008
Betfair Loses 1.4million Pounds In Payout ErrorBetfair Loses 1.4million Pounds In Payout Error

Betfair is experiencing a bit of embarrassment this week and is now demanding 20 players who have won over £100,000 from the poker room to return the funds before they take the next step of pursuing legal action.

No these players didn’t cheat in the technical sense, but instead took advantage of an error in Betfair’s system.

On January 12th, the company experienced a temporary glitch whereby the payouts in some of the highstakes sit and go tournaments were actually paying out to much money. A handful of players saw this and immediately started registering for as many games as possible, which to be honest most players would do.

What made these games different from your typical SNG was the first and second place finishers received their respective payouts as they normally would except 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place, all received a payout that was fixed for 2nd place. Once this was spotted by players they immediately began playing as many games as they could with allins on each hand. Why play when you are going to cash no matter what hand you place.

These games weren’t just paying out chump change either but instead handed over some large winnings. According to players involved they were the 6 and 9 pack SNG ranging from $300 - $1000 buyins.

This error lasted for almost 6 hours and it has been speculated Betfair lost over £1.4million although they were able to recover a great deal by locking player accounts or freezing their PayPal accounts. Those players who were able to withdraw the funds to their credit cards are now being asked to return it to avoid any legal ramifications.

Some are claiming this is an error on Betfair’s part and by no means should they have to return the winnings. This is furthest from the truth since all players when signing up for a room must agree to the terms set in the company’s T&C’s. Betfair Poker’s T&C’s clearly states;

“9.2 If you are incorrectly awarded any winnings as a result of (a) any human error on the part of the Service Providers or (b) any bug, defect or error in the Software or (c) the failure of the Products or the Software to operate in accordance with the rules of any of Poker's games then the Service Providers will not be liable to pay you any such winnings and you agree to refund any such winnings that may have been paid to you as a result of such error or mistake.”

The players were than emailed by Betfair requesting the money by January 28th or the will pursue other means of recovering the cash. An email received by one of the players from Betfair stated;

In an email, Betfair said: "You recently received payments from playing Sit & Go STTs [single table tournaments] on Betfair Poker in circumstances that resulted in greater payouts than intended.

The games were incorrectly set up to pay everyone involved in certain all-in situations and this was exploited by you and others to generate substantial returns in a short space of time. As I'm sure you can understand, the winnings received as a result of this exploitation must be returned."

One of the players who took part in the tournaments came forth on 2+2 to dispel some of the rumours and judgements that were spreading across the forums. In his posts he said

“At the end of the day, my view on the situation is that nothing illegal occurred, it was unethical, but greed drives people to do strange things, I'm pretty sure that 95%+ of the world’s population would pick up a wad of cash if they found it on the floor. Some may end up giving it back if the police made a statement regarding it, while others may try to hide it, and some may even try to launder the money in casinos etc to get it clean.

This is pretty much a good comparison of what has happened in this situation imho, and I think that there are positives and minuses to be drawn from each parties perspectives.”

Although he did confess to taking advantage of the situation by knowingly playing in the games that were giving him a major advantage, there were others who took it too far. Screenshots were taken of players giving MSN addresses in chat and then quickly moving to tables to dump chips. Those players were than making the withdrawals.

All players who participated in these games were to return the funds to Betfair by the 28th of January. It is not known if this has happened yet, but since this incident Betfair has changed their policy for requesting withdrawals. As of January 22nd, any request made to withdraw winnings will be place on hold for a period of 12 hours prior to be processed.

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#128801 - 02/17/08 09:30 PM

Re: Errors at SNG tables at Betfair [Re: BOOSHIFIED]

FREAK
2007 Bad Man Champion
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Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 45081
Loc: Time to play the Game

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That's jacked up on both Betfair's part and the players part. It is a black eye for legit players. Shame on Betfair for not monitoring their systems better.

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#128882 - 02/18/08 06:35 PM

Re: Errors at SNG tables at Betfair [Re: FREAK]

ramins
Forum Police
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Registered: 05/15/04
Posts: 5783
Loc: Texas

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Got to love the free money. Something like this happened to me in 1999 in the midst of the online sportsbook boom. It was a Sunday with a huge NBA card and daylight savings was in effect that day, so this Book ( I won't mention names ) was not aware of the time change. I was making huge bets at halftime vs the game line in 8 games. Its nice to be up by 15 or 18 and making a bet at -2. I requested a payout via WU and got it the next day. I couldn't believe that they didn't catch it sooner. Two days later they asked me for the money back. Riiiiight.

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