Comment


CHELSEA'S AET VICTORY CREATED LOTS OF BUSINESS FOR IBAS


90 minute settling still causing disputes


John Samuels of IBAS explains how a long term problem is still causing problems for punters and bookmakers alike.


I


t must have been almost 30 years or so ago that Esther Rantzen, on the popular


BBC TV consumer pro- gramme That’s Life, did her best embarrass the betting industry. She held aloft a betting slip that had a bet written on it for ‘Man Utd to win’ the previous week’s FA Cup final.


somewhat


Rantzen proclaimed, sarcastically,


how it seemed it was only the bookmaking industry who did not appear to know that Man Utd had indeed won the cup and she queried why the bet had not been settled as a winner and paid. To those watching, who worked in the industry and knew the whole story, her comments were seen as a cheap shot. But to the other many millions watching, her argument must have resonated and no doubt some of the viewing audi- ence had sympathy with the punter who did not get paid. It was, however, the fact that Man Utd were drawing at 90 minutes of play and had won the game only after extra time had been played. So, and as those who know, a bet for Man Utd to win would be settled as a loser as those who had bet on the draw option, at the end of normal time, would be paid out as winners.


Only those who had written ‘Man Utd to lift the cup’ or ‘Man Utd - FA Cup


winners’ or similar and had taken the lesser outright odds than those available on the 90 minute market (which included the draw option) would be settled as winners. But for the viewers who were watch- ing the programme this inci- dent seemed an example of a bookmaker welching on a bet and cheating an unsus- pecting customer. Thirty years on and there


is still the same issue. Take the recent Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Chelsea. With Chelsea 1-0 down and with only a few minutes to go until the end of normal time Drogba scored a magnificent header to level the score. Extra time loomed and with it the prospect of maybe a penalty shoot-out. Great for those looking for football excitement, great for the neutral footballing spectator and fantastic for the commercial television stations who were broad- casting the event and were thus able to transmit many more adverts etc. but not necessarily good for those who had bet on a clear winner at 90 minutes, nor for many betting shop staff, or the workload at IBAS. From the perspective of bet disputes the dreaded draw at full-time did happen. However, Chelsea finally did lift the cup but only after an exciting penalty shoot-out.


34 BettingBusinessInteractive ¥ AUGUST 2012


Subsequently, many foot- ball punters came to IBAS claiming that even though Chelsea went on to lift the cup their bets on ‘Chelsea to win’ were settled as losers. Consequently, IBAS’s post bag became full of football disputes. Sunday 24 June this year


and a European Champi- onship game was yet another example where the industry could be made to look bad. The England v Italy match was one where c. 2/1 could have been had for England to win (at 90 minutes) and c. evens for England to qualify and to go through to the next round of the European Championship. As most will know the score was a draw at 90 minutes and the game ended in a penalty shoot out victory to Italy.


But say if England had won the penalty shoot out. There is no doubt that many who had been given the 2/1 for an England win (at 90 minutes) would have been presenting their slips and looking for payment, and would have been met with the response ‘computer says no, the bet is a loser’. As many will already


know, the standard market in football betting is one of 90 minutes play and at 90 minutes it was the a bet on the draw that was the winning one and not a bet on ‘Chelsea to win’ or ‘England to win’


It is a source of contin- ued frustration at IBAS that


when such bets (that do not state ‘to win outright’ or ‘to lift the cup’, or ‘to qualify’ or similar) are taken it seems that more could be done to explain to the cus- tomer what his bet actually is and what the market is that he is betting on. One would think that after many many years of identical disputes the inno- vative, forward thinking and entrepreneurial indus- try that is the betting indus- try in the UK would have solved this seemingly never-ending source of bet dispute by now; but no. Maybe one solution would be for such football bets to be placed using only mark sense/quick slips, and these slips would show both the 90 minute and out- right odds. Thus the cus- tomer would be shown what markets are available and then, maybe with a cross or a tick he could then decide what market he wants to bet on. The receipt would then also show what market he had bet on. Maybe the industry could investigate this possibility before the next big cup game comes along.


Not for the first time I say roll on the day when bets are taken in the same way that National Lottery bets are processed. Invalid bets are stopped at acceptance and those that are taken and processed issue a receipt that fully explains and lists the bet that is on.


Bookies not to blame T


andrew mccarron viewpoint


he closure of Hereford and Folkestone is a sad end for racecourses with years of heritage and tradition, but with the economy in the state it is at the moment, it is inevitable that something was going to have to give in what can be described as a bloated sport.


The BHA has blamed the outmoded and unsatisfac- tory funding mechanism for the collapse of the race- courses, and it is right to some extent. But the archaic Levy actually served to keep the two corpses alive for far longer than they would have been under normal circum- stances. Under a new com- mercial deal, would they have fared any better? As the parent company acknowledged, they had both been making losses for some time.


The truth is that the fact that two racecourses have closed down should not be an indictment of funds from the betting industry, and the general parsimony of book- makers, but a marker that the country is in a double dip recession.


Betting shops have trans- formed themselves since the turn of the millennium by offering a variety of product to a wider range of cus- tomers. The Levy existed for so long thanks to the ability of bookmakers to turn a


ACTION IMAGES / LEE SMITH


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