Betfair Voids All Bets Due To "Obvious Error"

By Peter Willis / December 29, 2011

Betfair yesterday suffered what they described as a "technical failure" with in-play betting on the 2.00 race at Leopardstown. The controversy centred on eventual winner Voler La Vedette, who could be backed at odds of 29.0 (28/1) on the Betfair betting exchange from around 1 mile into the race. At the time the sizeable lay (bet against) was made available Voler La Vedette was travelling well towards the rear of the field. What seems to have occured, according to Betfair, is that a layer managed to exceed their credit account (available to a small number of their customers) maximum liability - to the tune of several hundred million pounds. I can only be making assumptions, given the complete lack of information offered by Betfair, but it appears possible the layer had intended to offer a lay at around 2.9 (the price the horse had been previously available at) but incorrectly struck at 29.0. This error - possibly made by a bot or simply misinterpreted by Betfair's systems - then led to the credit liability somehow being breached. Some commentators have even put forwarded the possibility of an employee within Betfair attempting to expose a glitch with the system. Betfair spokesman, Tony Calvin, said: "It is an obvious error". But voiding the in-play betting on the race for this reason strikes at the very heart of what Betfair is all about. It is a betting exchange, where punter A is matched against punter B at odds which both parties agree on. In many cases, both lay and back bets are placed using pre-programmed robots. If the customer who placed the lay had enough in their account to cover the liability, then backers would have almost certainly been paid. But as it would have cost Betfair money, they found a way out. Back in 2006 at Wolverhampton, a somewhat similar case occured which saw a punter walk away with a