It’s the stuff of dreams for punters: placing a 350/1 acca and then, against all odds, every selection lands and you get to celebrate the unlikeliest of wins.
But for one bettor over in America, the dream became a nightmare when his win – which would have amounted to $389,000 (£300,000) – was cruelly ripped away from him.
The reason? So-called ‘bookmaker error’.
Obvious Error?
Mark Aiello, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, had placed a same game acca on an NBA contest between the Chicago Bulls and the Indiana Pacers earlier this month. And, to his shock, every leg of his assists and rebounds bet landed – securing him that almighty payout.
He was, understandably, elated, and no doubt like many of us would, began planning how he was going to spend his winnings – college education for his daughter was at the top of his list.
“Once the game was over, I was just, my heart was racing. I was incredibly excited,” Aiello said.
But it wasn’t long before things took a turn for the worse…
BetMGM, with whom he had placed the wager, refused to pay out. The betslip was frozen and ‘greyed out’ in Aiello’s account, indicating that the bet was being investigated by their in-house team.
According to the bookmaking firm, Aiello’s bet had actually been declared void just before the game between the Bulls and the Pacers got underway due, in their words, to an ‘obvious error’.
This is a term used when a bookmaker publishes the wrong odds on their website or app. The idea is that it protects them from a glaring mistake when inputting data, such as making a 2/1 chance an accidental 200/1 outsider instead. In that case, they would be protected by the ‘obvious error’ clause.
But there is still an element of subjectivity as to what an ‘obvious’ error would be, and it will be fascinating to see how the regulatory authorities governing this case in Illinois.
What is Palpable Error?
What’s curious in this case is that Aiello’s bets were left to stand for seven hours from the moment he placed them until the point they were made void.
That will interest any legal eagles that he chooses to instruct on his behalf. If an error is left to stand for seven hours before being rectified, then just how ‘obvious’ was it in the first place?
The Illinois Gaming Board will now be tasked with deciding whether Aiello’s bet should or shouldn’t have been declared void. As part of that process, BetMGM will have to explain what the alleged obvious error was and how it came to be made.
It will be fascinating to hear how the authority decided to adjudicate on the matter because, although this is all happening thousands of miles away, it still has ramifications for how similar cases will be decided in the UK in future.
On these shores, the term ‘obvious error’ is typically replaced by palpable error. The definition remains the same: a bookmaker has made a monumental (palpable) mistake when publishing its odds, which they are able to rectify thanks to the small print in their terms and conditions.
This is a defence that would be used when a selection that is generally 2/1 with most bookmakers is available at 20/1 with a single firm; clearly, somebody’s sausage fingers have added the extra ‘0’ by mistake.
Another example of this, which actually happened on an exchange when Manchester United played Southampton a few years ago, is when the odds for each team are inputted the wrong way round. In this case, the Saints were made odds-on favourites and United – still a decent side at this point – were made a 5/1 longshot.
Clearly, this was palpable error, and all bets placed were voided.
If you have placed a bet that has subsequently been voided, with palpable error used as an excuse, you can raise a complaint with the Independent Betting Adjudication Service. They may be able to help when the bookmaker’s defence is so egregious that your bet should have stood.
Sometimes, the ‘little guy’ does get a win against these big betting firms. Although an example from online casino gaming rather than sports betting, one Paddy Power customer successfully sued for £1.1 million in unpaid winnings after the firm claimed that a slot game had malfunctioned – the High Court judge ruled that that wasn’t an adequate defence, because human interaction could have rectified the issue.
And, legally speaking, that’s not too far removed from palpable error in sports betting…