On whose side do you rule? Player or book?

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Consider this "hypothetical" situation..and tell me, on whose side do you rule? Player or book? Here's the situation:

A book posts a prop bet with a line that's obviously mistaken (payoff is ten times higher than it should be). Player bets the prop for a smaller-than-usual amount of money and wins. Book pays the full win (ten times higher than it obviously should have been) with no questions or comments. Player continues to wager many times more than initial winnings on other games over the next several days.

Four days after the mistaken prop bet is made player requests a payout. Book looks over his action, "notices" that an obviously mistaken line was taken advantage of, and cancels those winnings, leaving player only with winnings corresponding to what the line "should" have been, rather than what it actually was. Player argues that he should be able to keep the full amount that was credited to his account 4 days before.

On whose side do you rule? Player or book?

Here are the arguments, as I see them, for both sides. Feel free to pipe in with your own:

Book:
-----

* - Line was clearly an error; too egregious a disparity to attribute it to a generous line. Book has the right to cancel bets with clear and obvious line errors.

Player:
-------

* - Did not knowingly take advantage of bad line; actually bet significantly less on that prop than he did on others. Logic would dictate that opportunities for 'cheating' should yield bets with HIGHER than normal wager amounts, not lower.
* - Statute of limitations should be in effect. While player acknowledges that book has the right to cancel bets with bad lines, that should be done immediately, on the day bet is made. Grading wager, paying it off in full, and then claiming four days later upon player's request of a payout that the bet is invalid is disingenuous. Player has already made future betting decisions on the basis of a balance already present in his account. Player would also not have the right -- if he had LOST the bet -- to claim four days afterwards that it was a bad line and thus the bet should be refunded.

What do you all think?
 

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Book - no question.

A common approach of shot takers is to bet a less than normal amount, hoping the book will let it slide.
 

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Based on that info...
Player - no question

Book waited far far too long to cancel.
 

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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by D2bets:
Based on that info...
Player - no question

Book waited far far too long to cancel.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If it was a borderline bad line, I would probably agree with you.

However, when someone bets a bad line that's A MULTIPLE OF 10 away from the correct line, the book should normally be cut some slack.
 

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I should have added:

Feel free to offer a compromise possibility if you can't justify ruling with one side or the other.
 

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I would rule the players side because it's the books right to check the lines throughly. Also, this play was graded as a winner; thus being four days later the book should honour it.
 

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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dogs24:
I should have added:

Feel free to offer a compromise possibility if you can't justify ruling with one side or the other.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

dogs:

Has this event already happened to someone, or is this totally hypothetical ??
 

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At worse the book should pay at least half of the wager. That is what I did when a customer of mine said they bet one side but I clearly had him betting the other side. I thought to myself would it be worth it to lose a customer over 500 or get him to continue betting and kicking his ass later. In the end I really knocked him out. That's why I always think the customer should always come first within reason.
 

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This is a very very very tough one to call. It can go either way. Obvious bad line, but,, the book got careless and graded it a winner, and came back 4 days later to correct it. NO WAY is this right, yet the bettor took a shot here..

But what I would like to know is, I will go out on a limb here and say that this happened at a NASA affiliated book, right? I have seen this happen so many times, and ALWAYS at a NASA book.. Am i right??

Was this a NASA book?

NO -125
YES +105

_________

The only reason the NO is favored is because they are way too many books out there than NASA books.
 

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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by smokey:
At worse the book should pay at least half of the wager. That is what I did when a customer of mine said they bet one side but I clearly had him betting the other side. I thought to myself would it be worth it to lose a customer over 500 or get him to continue betting and kicking his ass later. In the end I really knocked him out. That's why I always think the customer should always come first within reason.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Obviously, in a real-life situation, as in your case, it would depend to a degree on whether you expected to win money in the future from the bettor.

Answer this as a theoretical question: let's say this was the first bet that this guy ever placed with you. What would you do ?
 

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The key question here is whether the book has a posted rule about such situations and if so, what does it say.

I think most books do have a rule and it says the book reserves the right to void such plays after the fact.

Here, the player would have no case.

If, however, there were no rule, or if it were vaguely worded, then I would consider it fair to split the difference, ie. take back half of the winnings, say, and give a polite explanation as to why both parties were at fault.

Having said that, if the player were valuable to me for some reason based on his previous play, then I would consider just paying him the full amount, but writing a letter pointing out the situation saying that if it happened again, the bet would get cancelled.

Of course, if I were that astute as a bookie I probably wouldn't get into such a situation in the first place. It's a pretty BS thing to do to ignore all action except those requesting a payout. That's just unprofessional IMO.
 

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The situation is not terribly hypothetical, but at I'll leave it at that.

I gave the book another $48,648 worth of action besides the prop bet in question over four days.
 

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WHAT DOES THE BOOKS RULES REGARDING THIS TYPE OF SITUATION SAY?
 

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Halifax, that is a damn good question to be asking me. I would probably pay up to 300 and tell the dude that this can't happen again otherwise he can get lost then. If he won, I'm pretty sure he will be playing again. I think bettors will take shots at you from time to time. The secret of being a good bookmaker is trying to tailor to the customers needs and that's why I still think Olympic would honour their mistakes if it's not that large of a wager. Out of all the books I have played with, I still think Olympic will do everything in their power to accomodate customers like cancelling wagers or other problems that arises. Nowadays there is so much prop bets that bookmakers can make mistakes, but if you can't handle doing all these, then you shouldn't be offering it. The most important thing for large companies is to have competant people working for them. As long as you don't give opportunities for players to screw you, then bettors can take advantage of you.
 

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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dogs24:
The situation is not terribly hypothetical, but at I'll leave it at that.

I gave the book another $48,648 worth of action besides the prop bet in question over four days.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Since this is now real and not hypothetical, I'll pull up some quotes from your first post in the thread:

A book posts a prop bet with a line that's obviously mistaken (payoff is ten times higher than it should be).

and

Player: * - Did not knowingly take advantage of bad line; actually bet significantly less on that prop than he did on others.
----------------

The problem here is that your story doesn't mesh.

First you say it's "a line that's obviously mistaken". Then you say that the player "did not knowingly take advantage of a bad lne." If it's "obviously mistaken" ... and you bet it ... well ...

This is called being caught in a fib. The story is now clear.
 

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Halifax --

Relax with the jumping down my throat.

The situation was that at the *TIME* the bet was placed, the player did not notice a mistaken line. I thought it was +125, turns out it was +1255. Just as the book apparently accidentally added a five and didn't notice it, so too did I not notice the extra five.

When I say the line was 'obviously mistaken', I meant that once the book pointed out the line *FOUR DAYS LATER*, the player acknowledges that the line was obviously a mistake. But neither he nor the book noticed it at the time it was placed, nor at the time it was graded.

Please be careful with your namecalling and read more carefully. I'm asking this question because I want to know what RXers think is fair, not so that I can have my integrity called into question. The book has no doubt that I didn't deliberately place a bet on a bad line -- it was one of several bets placed at the same time, and the extra '5' was overlooked.

But the truth is, whether the player knew about the bad line or not at the time the bet was placed is irrelevant. The question is whether a book should have to honor a wager that it already paid, and only 'noticed' was erroneous when a payout was requested.
 

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General --

Yes, of course. It's a common prop.

I played the prop many times before and since.
 

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