Betfair Happy Hour: at least one legal challenge now seems successfully concluded

Monday, June 27, 2011

Betfair Happy Hour: at least one legal challenge now seems successfully concluded

Since the mass confiscation of winnings of the Betfair Happy Hour fiasco, there's been a lot of talk of legal challenges but not, it appeared, much actual action. That appears to have changed. One player, owed approximately £4000, has taken the bull by the horns and, it seems, won.

He posted his interest in legal action in his Taking Betfair to court thread at The Gambling Times forum several months ago:

Well I think the time has come to start legal proceedings against Betfair for removing money from my (our) exchange accounts without justification or explanation.

Perhaps we could use this thread to discuss the way forward, without putting to much detail in that would assist Betfair in the event of the case actually making it to court.

He went so far as to get a court date this month, June 2011. He then posted the following rather cryptic update in another thread:

Well I have had an interesting weekend that has resulted in me giving up casinos and betting!

I have withdrawn all of my money from the exchanges, book and casinos.

I have asked for membership to be removed from various forums - including this one.

I must thank you all for many years of my profitable hobby, but I now have to move on to new and better things with my life.

Oh, some of you may have an ongoing interest in one particular thread I started. All I can comment on that subject is do not give up. And for those that have not got round to starting, then get your bloody claim in!

Reading between the lines, it's clear that the outcome was favourable to him. Whether or not it actually ended up in court isn't clear, but I'd suspected from the start that Betfair would offer a settlement, and I'm confident that this is what happened. The settlement would also have been tied up in a non-disclosure agreement, which would explain the cryptic wording of the update.

Betfair had no option on this. While the stock in trade excuse about players "abusing the spirit of the bonus" works well in casino land to justify confiscation of players' funds, it quickly falls apart in the real world because it has no validity - the "abuse" in question is invariably a consequence of casino incompetence and not player wrongdoing, and no neutral party would ever see it otherwise. The only remaining question is how far this will go, but it seems certain that it'll now snowball onwards with more and more players putting in legal challenges, confident in a successful outcome after the conclusion of this test case.

However, it's also pretty certain that all settlements will be bound up in a non-disclosure agreement, so it's unlikely we'll ever know the full story.

Update August 2011: We do now know for a fact that the outcome of this matter was exactly as I hypothesised above. This from the Betfair thread at the SBR forum:

I can confirm that a player that sued Betfair collected his happy hour winnings, but I cannot share any details. The settlement agreement between Betfair and the player prohibited the player from publicly sharing any terms of the settlement. I think every player that sued Betfair (or will sue Betfair) in the UK would win.

I saw Betfair's pleadings, and they were a joke. As in the emails they sent to players, they rely soley on "suspicious wagering patterns". If a player is betting a fixed percentage of their bankroll (as a majority of them did on this promotion), how is that "suspicious"? Smart, yes. Suspicious, only if you are a mathematically challenged casino manager.

So Betfair, subject to a legal challenge, settled this debt with the player without going to court, whilst binding him to a non-disclosue agreement in an attempt to prevent the matter from becoming public knowledge.

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2 Previous Comments

I see a betfair banner on your main page... so you promote the thieves huh?

By Anonymous, at 2:05 pm

Yes.

Betfair is the best casino / sportsbook on the internet in terms of player odds. If you can legally play there and want the best odds available, you cannot avoid them. You also need to know everything that has go on so as to make informed judgements, hence you will find all matters regarding disreputable behaviour at Betfair over these past twelve months fully documented.

But I will never tell players to not patronise the operation which offers such a quality product, as it would be counter productive - if you don't know about them, you cannot benefit. Just make sure you understand the potential risks involved, if such there are.

By 100% Gambler, at 3:11 pm