Sportsbet 40+ disposals saga

Feb 18, 2008
11,093
9,050
Nowra
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
99 Problems hit it. Evidence on whether the price was an obvious error comes from previous markets on number of disposals from SB and other books. If they can prove an obvious error that should cover them for the majority of cases.

Prices being wound in = no issue as it's automated.

Those with a chance who should have a crack are any who got referred to a trader and accepted. The trader is meant to validate the price and market exposure before accepting, so as a manual intervention point is essentially saying I am OK with this. Not sure they should be allowed to be voided.
 

AvantGardener

Premiership Player
Mar 13, 2016
4,762
5,093
AFL Club
Carlton
This is going to be interesting to follow.

Sportsbet probably won't want to invest the time and effort looking into every case, but if they did, I could see it working out like this.

Punter A)
A proven mug punter. Rarely takes +EV odds. Betting patterns are consistent with that of a casual punter. A negative return from the lifetime of his account. A large majority of his bets are multies. No history of ever getting on a palp.

Punter B)
Seems a bit more calculated. Doesn't bet every day of the week, and more often than not he will bet on weekends only. Betting patterns are consistent with someone who likes to shop around for best odds. Slightly in the minus over the lifetime of his account. Places the occasional multi. No history of ever getting on a palp.

Punter C)
Places bets most days of the week. A lot more calculated and switched on than the average punters. A large majority of his bets are placed 48 hours out from events in +EV situations. Rarely places multies. Has had several bets in the past two years that were palps. Slightly in the green over the lifetime of his account.

Punter D)
Places bets every day. Very calculated and well educated. Betting patterns suggest he only ever places bets that are +EV. Rarely places multies. Has a history of betting on palps. Well in the green over the lifetime of his account.

Sportsbet could easily argue that Punter D was well aware of the extra generous odds / palp. It's likely they could also argue Punter C was well aware of the overpriced odds in each leg of the multi. It's reasonable that Punter A had absolutely no idea that he was betting markets with overpriced odds, and it's probably reasonable that Punter B may have also not been aware of the overpriced odds. These punters were simply "following the crowd" when the 40+ markets went viral, and weren't aware of the palps.

Sportsbet and NT Racing and Gaming rule in favour of Punters A and B and decide to pay them out. They don't rule in favour of Punters C and D and those punters can instead count their lucky chickens they even got paid out at odds of $9.

Given there are thousands in this position, there's no way Sportsbet would invest the time and energy to go through every account. They'd honestly prefer to just take the $9 million loss and recover that loss over the next several days by going about their usual business.
Um punter D got banned years ago
 

langdon19

Club Legend
Dec 2, 2008
1,067
2,285
perth
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West Coast
$120 odds are an obvious error, the bet wins 1/5 games.
Hope Sb get screwed over this, weight of public numbers might force their hand.
They screwed me last year and I was more in the right than the above case, what really pissed me off was the fact I got limited to the point of being banned as well.
I think the people who placed this bet (me included at $12) will get their accounts reviewed so might as well screw Sb over. I’ll be happy to see them get done to themselves what they have done to others.
 
Let's agree to disagree here.

Bookmakers aren't in the habit of giving away free money.

There is no way they would have paid out at 10-1 if they weren't really worried.

Time will tell, but I expect the NT Gaming Commission to rule in favour of punters (at least if they put together their submission well).

This has also hit the media and that will help customers in this case.

The argument is not based on 'average punters have no idea about real odds', the argument is based on citing a case that sets out the criteria for what constitutes an 'obvious error'.

Edit: And I am speaking as someone who has been successful in numerous submissions to the regulators.

NT Gaming Commission has ruled in favour of the punters in this case.

Just saying, for all the sceptics out there ;)

In all seriousness, this was the right outcome and I am glad that justice was done.
 

bato

Norm Smith Medallist
Oct 7, 2011
9,384
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Or not.

We won. ;)
366262DC-5901-4008-B906-5ABE0C2A56C5.jpeg
 

mouncey2franklin

Norm Smith Medallist
Jun 16, 2018
8,644
15,438
AFL Club
North Melbourne
I did not get on this but huge kudos and congrats to those who did.

Surprised the 'regulators' gave this one to the punters.

The entire industry is a joke built on taking advantage of dumb people (and smart people who do dumb things, like me).

My faith in the system was restored a little bit today.

Everyone's a winner except Sportsbet -- and let's be honest, they'll make that money back in no time.
 

IKnowtheDog

Norm Smith Medallist
Jan 25, 2016
9,339
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Punters are the losers here. The small group won in this instance.

Consequently books will change their algorithms so that they won’t be caught out unawares meaning it will be even harder to place a bet than it is now.
 

Oraaaaazio

Club Legend
Jun 23, 2014
1,712
2,587
AFL Club
Essendon
There's no backsies when a punter makes a mistake, so the bookmaker should have to payout whatever mistaken bets/odds they put up. Can't believe there are people out there that side with them on this.
I've had bets cancelled after I've made a mistake as a punter after calling up as soon as I realised. Where the market hasn't moved, they've always refunded as per my request so that's just incorrect. I've had bets cancelled by bookmakers for betting palps. It's in the rules, so you just cop it. I've also had palps paid, because I didn't go screaming it from the roof top which is what everyone should do. Keep it to yourself.

The only thing here is whether or not it was a clear error and they decided it wasn't. Good for the people who got their money here but I felt at the time it was wrong & still do, they knew they were betting an error - hence every man and his dog hearing about it & everyone telling their mates, and the amounts bet on a 100/1+ shot by otherwise small time punters, seen from betting statements showing they ordinarily bet $5/$10 units, now betting $100+ on such long odds, shows again they knew it was too good to be true. The actual outcome from memory worked out to be that about 1 in every 4 rounds, nobody had 40 for the round over the last couple of years, again showing it was a huge mistake. For everyone saying "they just took overs" it's quite clearly more than that, $101-$200 odds about a $4 pop is clearly a mistake however the number of times it actually happened wasn't considered when deciding if it was a clear error.

Have a couple of mates who have ended up with $15-$25k from this so happy for them but dare say that's the end of their Sportsbet accounts (especially if they just withdraw it) but they'd sell their account for that much without a doubt. Overall don't think "punters win" as I've seen in a couple of comments, just the group who were on the bet. Things will tighten up further for everyone else and rules will be tightened further, things monitored more closely. TBH it's a bit of karma for bookmakers replacing many of their odds compilers/traders with IT gurus with computer systems & algorithms, as no doubt a trader would've seen the volume being bet on this, looked into why and culled the market with much less than the $9mil liability they ended up with.
 

burge13

Brownlow Medallist
Jan 25, 2019
11,526
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AFL Club
Adelaide
I've had bets canceled after I've made a mistake as a punter after calling up as soon as I realised. Where the market hasn't moved, they've always refunded as per my request so that's just incorrect. I've had bets cancelled by bookmakers for betting palps. It's in the rules, so you just cop it. I've also had palps paid because I didn't go screaming it from the rooftop which is what everyone should do. Keep it to yourself.

The only thing here is whether or not it was a clear error and they decided it wasn't. Good for the people who got their money here but I felt at the time it was wrong & still do, they knew they were betting an error - hence every man and his dog hearing about it & everyone telling their mates, and the amounts bet on a 100/1+ shot by otherwise small time punters, seen from betting statements showing they ordinarily bet $5/$10 units, now betting $100+ on such long odds, shows again they knew it was too good to be true. The actual outcome from memory worked out to be that about 1 in every 4 rounds, nobody had 40 for the round over the last couple of years, again showing it was a huge mistake. For everyone saying "they just took overs" it's quite clearly more than that, $101-$200 odds about a $4 pop is clearly a mistake however the number of times it actually happened wasn't considered when deciding if it was a clear error.

Have a couple of mates who have ended up with $15-$25k from this so happy for them but dare say that's the end of their Sportsbet accounts (especially if they just withdraw it) but they'd sell their account for that much without a doubt. Overall don't think "punters win" as I've seen in a couple of comments, just the group who were on the bet. Things will tighten up further for everyone else and rules will be tightened further, things monitored more closely. TBH it's a bit of karma for bookmakers replacing many of their odds compilers/traders with IT gurus with computer systems & algorithms, as no doubt a trader would've seen the volume being bet on this, looked into why and culled the market with much less than the $9mil liability they ended up with.
But it wasn't an obvious error as they had similar odds up in previous weeks...
 

Oraaaaazio

Club Legend
Jun 23, 2014
1,712
2,587
AFL Club
Essendon
But it wasn't an obvious error as they had similar odds up in previous weeks...
How many times they put it up doesn't matter, they have someone setting the odds who doesn't know what they're doing (not the punters fault they sacked the traders in favour of computer geeks but it's still in the rules) and did it with the same process until they get caught out & realised their error. Getting 150/1 on something that happens every ~3 rounds is an error, not overs. 7 rounds this year, in a 23 round season nobody had 40 touches, none of those occurred in shortened bye rounds.. a 30.43% chance/$3.29 pop in true odds. Crude working but it's as good as you're gonna get.

Say there's a horse running today you know to be a $3 shot and the bookie is offering $151. Do you take it? Absolutely if you're willing to risk having your account chopped. Are you surprised when it's voided because it's clearly a mistake? Not at all.

Punters won this one but we've lost 1000s over the years and I bet it won't happen again. I've had it happen dozens of times but the worst one was a couple of years back, I had a jockey challenge bet at MadBookie at $18, same jock was $18 at luxbet and $11/$13 elsewhere, $9 at Sportsbet who had moved on him. Got 3 races in and MB voids my bet because of error rules because I took $18 and they had been slow to wind it in, he went on to win and my mate who had backed it at Luxbet had his bet paid without question. I took it to the gaming commission, using other books prices & payouts as evidence & I lost due to MB's "clear and palpable error" clause. I was genuinely surprised that Sportsbet lost here because it was a much clearer error than the one I lost - albeit mine was through Norfolk Island commission & not NT.
 
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