A Question for today..

[Bookiebar]

The premise..

- An "unnamed" bookie puts up a market on a future, listing a number of possibilities and takes action on this market.

-It becomes apparent later that the list of contestants is not actually accurate and an outcome is missing and the betters have been betting into a market with the possibility of NOBODY WINNING.

- The bookie now lists the "missing" outcome at a price making it a distinct possibility at third favourite.

The Question

The bookie now refuses to refund money placed on the future BEFORE the missing outcome was inserted. Should they?

[sportshobby]

No, I don't think refunds are in order. If the players bet on their choice, and were happy with the odds, I don't see the problem.

Wasn't there the usual "field" of everyone else listed?

[Bookiebar]

No field outcome listed.

It was one of those "special" events, but still is it good form for a bookie to put up a market in which the only winner can potentially be the bookie?

[wisedat]

Good question. IMO the bets remain however if the new option wins players should be refunded. If the book then included the new option at a later date, players are essentially betting into a new market. This was the actual situation with a wager with an Australian TAB recently.

[sportshobby]

Certainly it isn't good form, or good business; but a prop is a prop. The player should realize if there are possible outcomes not listed.

[Jeff]

The player could argue that he made his bet based on the fact that one of the contestants was left out.

Adding the missing team, or contestant changes everything.

If I saw a golf prop to win, that left off Tiger Woods, I may make my bet based on the fact he wasn't listed. Add him after the fact, then that changes my reasoning......

[Jeff]

My example assumes the player sees the posted odds, and assumes tiger woods isn't in the match because he's not listed.

You could also argue that the player needs to take some responsibility here.....

[Bookiebar]

All very good answers so far..

Now the bookie in question (let me add it is a very large bookie) put up this "specials" market as a promotion to attract new gamblers (I assume most promotions are to attract new suckers). So the players taking some responsibility may not really apply as most betting into this market would be newish gamblers.

Does this change anybodies view?

Potentially taking advantage of new gamblers
by offering a market with possibly no winner?

[sportshobby]

Bookiebar, I suppose many bookmakers would change a $50 losing wager into a winner if they thought they could capture a sucker. But I thought you wanted to know what was "fair".

[sportshobby]

I had something like this happen to me once. I was hosting a superbowl party for some of my friends, many of which don't gamble regularly. So I just set up a page of squares for $10 each, thinking most would buy more than one. Well, many invites didnt' show and I was left with a half-empty board.

So I made the commitment to buy the rest of the board, placing a check in the unused squares. Then - you guessed it - each quarter the score went to a checked square, all the way to the end. As though this wasn't embarrassing enough (winning all the prizes), one of the guests asked what I was planning to do with the money since no one had won.

This is one of those screwy situations where you can't possibly come out fair. I really had committed to pay off the full value when someone won, so I had to explain to this friend what I had done. I doubt to this day that he will ever gamble with me.

So the answer depends on whether you're trying to be fair or hook suckers.

[Bookiebar]

Sporthobby, thats some evil luck you have going for you

But you didn't leave off a line then once your friends had bet put it back in and still expect them to be happy

[Frank]

If a team or player or whatever was not listed, it should NOT be added later. As Jeff said with the Tiger Woods situation, a bet might be placed as if he weren't playing in that tourney. The odds may be scewed.

I think the fair thing to do would be to put a disclaimer that if the winner was not listed, it will be no action.

Sportshobby, I understand what you are saying about knowing which participants are involved but some props(not sure what kind of bet this was) are only between certain listed participants and not all participants.

If this was a bet where the player or team was not listed but the odds were made with that participant as part of it, it could be different. An example would be a book putting up odds to win the American League Central and forgot to list Cleveland and the Chisox and all the other teams would be 20-1 or higher. In this case I would say that the book should have the chance to correct and offer the player a chance to cancel the wager if it was misinterpreted.

[Gregg]

In the UK most Bookmakers take wagers on the London Marathon. With in excess of 30,000 competitors it would be impossible to quote a price for them all - and Field prices are pretty much unheard of.

You can get a price for anyone not listed by just asking - we call it O.O.R. or Others On Request.

It should be the responsibility of the Bookmaker to make you aware of this option - ethically. But if you check the individual rules they should cover themselves, for their own protection as well as the player.


Gregg