Betfair player owed over three million dollars after payment processor fails to remit the funds

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Betfair player owed over three million dollars after payment processor fails to remit the funds

A Russian player racked up a total of $3,500,000 at Betfair earlier this year. The money, unfortunately, appears to have got lost in transit after being sent.

The matter has been reported by Sportsbook Review in their Betfair $3.1 million slow-pay video. The player concerned has also detailed the story:

07-29-11, 02:55 PM

At the end of February (17.02 and 20.02) I withdrew overall 3.5 mln US dollars (from Betfair). Five months have passed since, however, all I actually received so far is just slightly more than 400.000 USD. I don’t have a clue when I get the rest of the amount and even whether or not I get the money at all. I suspect the latter is more likely.

His funding method seems bizarre by usual standards, but is apparently not uncommon in this part of the world:

At the time my account was part of a master account. Several years ago the then Betfair manager Arthur Asatridis proposed to me this scheme and promised it would be "quick and easy deposits and withdrawals". It was indeed quick and easy with relatively small sums. But this 3.5 mln USD withdrawal became a farce almost from the start.

So what was the proposed time frame for this enormous payment?

At first I was by told that standard timeframe for such amounts for clients in Russia is "one month". Then PSP (Payment service providers - as Betfair managers prefer to call them, namely Irakli Kacharava and his business partner Vadim Sevryukov who was also my master account holder) promised the full payment in "two and a half months".

One month later I had a phone conference with 4 people: Betfair Chief Eastern European Manager Milena Ivanova, Betfair Russian Service Chief Yevgeny Ulanov, Kacharava and Sevryukov. They claimed "logistics issues" and promised me the full payment in 6 months' time.

When this failed to come to pass, they had this to say:

The explanation they gave is that they are encountering some legal problems and therefore are not able to pay me now. They don't elaborate on their "problems", they don't present any documents, they don't give any guarantees, nothing.

Any suggestion that the payment provider actually intends to remit the remainder of the funds appears unlikely from their most recent communications with the player:

Mr Ulanov also advised me not to publish this story, while Mr Kacharava even threatened me with "bad consequences" for me if go public. I wonder what he means.

Betfair may well have sent the full 3.5 million cashout, but it appears to have ended up in a big, fat Russian black hole. This is an unusual light to shine on a part of the payment to players process we don't usually think about - the part where the operator has sent the money, but the payment processor has then to credit the amount to the player account in question. As players, we take this stage for granted.

Payment sent = player paid.

Why it may have gone wrong on this occasion is open to speculation. It may be that Betfair did not do sufficient due dilligence on Irakli Kacharava and Vadim Sevryukov prior to accepting them as payment service providers, it may be that they represent a previously solid company that's now gone bad, or it might be something else and altogether more sinister. Whatever the explanation, the payment from Betfair has not been honoured to the player.

Irakli Kacharava, head man of the payment processor currently withholding the player's $3,100,000, can be seen being interviewed by a Betfair representative on this Betfair Poker Live video from Tallinn, Estonia in 2010. Clearly there is a relationship of sorts between the two parties.

So what is preventing Betfair from simply asking Mr. Kacharava to return the money?

In the mean time, if you see this man around and about...

Irakli Kacharava

...you can ask him to stand you a beer; Irakli Kacharava appears to have a spare three million one hundred thousand dollars knocking around in his back pocket.

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