FanDuel sports book puts positive spin on disputed $82K payout
FanDuel’s biggest mistake in trying to resolve an $82,000 dispute with a bettor was offering him $500 and tickets to New York Giants games.
Being forced to watch the Giants is cruel and unusual punishment.
“It could’ve been worse,” Wynn Las Vegas sports book director Johnny Avello said. “It could’ve been Bills or Cardinals games.”
FanDuel spun a potential public relations nightmare into positive publicity Thursday when it agreed to pay a New Jersey bettor his full $82,000 payout on a disputed $110 live wager at 750-1 odds.
Anthony Prince of Newark, New Jersey, made the bet Sunday at the FanDuel sports book at the Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey. The wager was placed on the Broncos to beat the Raiders as Denver moved into position for a winning 36-yard field goal with six seconds left.
FanDuel initially refused to pay the wager at the long odds, which it said was mistakenly generated by an 18-second computer glitch in the company’s automated system. It said the odds should have been calculated at 1-6, meaning Prince’s $110 wager should have paid $18.35.
But after meeting with state gaming regulators, FanDuel decided to pay in full Prince and 11 other bettors who placed 750-1 wagers.
Paddy Power payout
The company is owned by Paddy Power Betfair, the European bookmaker that famously paid out early more than $1 million to bettors who wagered on Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 U.S. presidential election. FanDuel will double down on its blunder by giving away another $82,000 this weekend by adding $1,000 each to the accounts of 82 randomly chosen bettors.
Nevada rules
In Nevada, any time there is a dispute in excess of $500, sports books are required to contact the Gaming Control Board, which then will conduct an investigation and make a ruling the books must abide by.
“They don’t always rule with the house,” Avello said. “They’re fair.”
House rules at all sports books in Nevada state that “in the event of obvious mechanical or human error, both the customer and the management will be protected.”
However, another longstanding Las Vegas rule is that “tickets go as written,” meaning once bettors leave the window or have their wagers confirmed on their mobile app, they’re in action.
Tickets go as written
In 2011, the Westgate sports book paid bettors who jumped all over a bad line on a Louisiana State-Northwestern State college football game. LSU was posted at pick’em when it should have been a 54-point favorite.
“Every game sets up as a pick’em, then we put the spread in and open betting,” Westgate sports book director Jay Kornegay said. “We accidentally opened betting and LSU-Northwestern State pops up as pick’em. We had it up there for maybe an hour when we noticed it.
“A major operation has thousands of line changes a day. They’re moving all the time. Errors are going to happen.
“I thought that would’ve fell under obvious human error, but tickets go as written trumped that.”
Unfortunately for bettors hoping to hit a 750-1 shot on a short last-second field goal, Nevada books have provisions in place to avoid accepting such wagers. When the amount of the bet or the risk exceeds a certain threshold, approval is required from a supervisor.
Growing pains?
It’s unclear what protocol was followed at the FanDuel sports book, which opened in July after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in May to overturn the federal ban on sports betting.
“There’s a major learning curve for everybody involved there,” said Micah Roberts, a longtime former Las Vegas sports book director. “Everything was rushed.”
While Roberts initially attributed the glitch to growing pains, he now wonders whether foul play was involved.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “It’s just that they did it so quick. My first inclination now is that it was an inside job. Someone internally that had access to the computer put their fingers on the keyboard.
“That would be something Nevada would immediately figure out.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.
