Picture the scene. You’ve been following the latest PGA TOUR golf tournament on TV, watching on as the presenters and pundits desperately fill airtime given that it’s raining cats and dogs outside.
The Sunday is wiped out by torrential rain and high winds. And you know that, if there’s no play on Monday, the reserve day, then a 54-hole winner will be declared.
So, thinking logically, you begin to place bets on the current leaderboard after round three – knowing that there’s a chance no more play will be had.
After a comprehensive rain dance, the weather gods oblige – the tournament is cancelled after 54 holes, but with the current leaderboard topper declared the winner.
Hooray, or a version of it, you might think: your bets will now be settled as winners.
But, as one punter in the United States is finding out, it’s not always to get paid out by your bookmaker when these controversial situations play out…
Pebble Beach Palaver
Nicholas Bavas was sat at home in Iowa watching the AT&T Pebble Beach play out on TV in February 2024.
Except he wasn’t watching anything of note, because the weather in Monterey, California was absolutely horrendous.
With 54 holes in the can but rain teeming down, Wyndham Clark was top of the leaderboard after breaking the course record at Pebble Beach in the third round.
Heavy rains and high winds were in situ on Sunday, the traditional final day of action for a PGA TOUR event, and so the decision was taken to delay the final round on Monday.
And that’s when Bavas got his thinking cap on. If he was to place his outright bets on the AT&T Pebble Beach now and no more play is possible, DraftKings – his chosen bookmaker – would have to settle his bets as winners.
So he placed a special bet called ’20 Picks’, in which the punter must pick out multiple players to finish in specific positions on the leaderboard. Bavas placed a series of bets totalling £225 – which DraftKings accepted – sat back and watched nature take its course.
On the Monday, course officials decided that no further play would be possible due to the unsafe conditions, and so the PGA TOUR abandoned the rest of the tournament – declaring Clark the winner and paying out prize money to the players based upon their final positions on the leaderboard.
Bavas, no doubt, was dancing a jig of delight: his set of £225 wagers had landed… to the tune of $14 million (£10 million).
Notwithstanding the fact that bookmakers have maximum win limits in place – DraftKings were never going to pay out the full amount, Bavas should have still won a sizable amount in accordance with the max payout ceiling.
But his bookmaker was not playing ball…
Breach of Contract?
When Bavas checked his DraftKings account at the culmination of the tournament, he noticed that all of his bets had been refunded.
After checking on their status, he found that the bets had been voided by DraftKings.
Understandably irate, Bavas would subsequently instruct lawyers to act on his behalf, suing DraftKings and a subsidiary company – Crown IA Gaming – for the full $14 million he believes he’s owed.
The lawsuit claims that DraftKings ‘unfairly’ voided the bets, having accepted wagers in-play while the tournament was still active – they should therefore pay out in good faith.
Bavas and his legal team are seeking damages for breach of contract and the breaking of consumer protection laws, alleging that the bookmaker has enacted a ‘dizzying array of interlocking sets of rules’ in a bid to circumnavigate large payouts.
“However, when DraftKings makes an error or accepts a bet it should not have, or when unforeseen events occur that require an unanticipated large pay out by DraftKings, then it seems different rules apply,” the writ claims.
The bookmaker themselves have cited their own terms and conditions in response. These claim that ‘futures’ bets, i.e. outright wagers, placed after the final shot of the tournament has been played – even if the event is curtailed due to unforeseen circumstances – will be rendered void.
But Bavas’ legal team claims that the rule should not apply to accumulator bets placed on multiple players.
His lawyer, Ben Lynch, commented: “If he had lost the bet and said, ‘I want my money back because I didn’t think the weather was going to cancel things,’ DraftKings would have kept his money.
“The rules that DraftKings had in place at the time of the tournament did not allow them to void the bets. They changed the rules after this tournament.”