William Hill Refusing To Pay Out £285,000

MarvGaran

Hello everyone,

Approximately a month ago, my Dad went to William Hill Strutton Ground branch and placed a £5 accumulator on several football games to win however the staff member gave him higher odds than usual. Juventus (1/6), St. Liege (17/2), Petrolul (5/1), Nancy (5/1), Al-Ittihad FC (10/1), Al Nasr Riyadh (12/1) to win. All these teams won and he went to collect his money which was £285,285.24 but the staff member and manager said they cannot pay this out as the staff member made a mistake with the odds. They informed him to contact customer services.

Customer services informed me that they were unable to pay out this amount. They said that the member of staff in the William Hill branch had made a mistake in giving me the odds that I got and that if the difference in odds were just a few points that they could negotiate however because it was a 20 point difference they would be unable to do this.

After doing a bit of reading on MSE I saw that contacting the Independent Betting Adjudication Service would be a good idea. However, after a month of waiting they ruled in favour of the bookmaker. (Sorry for the length of the post but I'm trying to provide as much detail as possible).

Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed from here? Is this something that we have no hope winning or are there other routes to take? Considering that it's a substantial amount of money, my Dad is quite reluctant to give up now.

NotRichAtAll

personally i would go there and inform them that your going to the national papers with your story ie sun,star,mirror as a bet is a bet surely if this the case they could say that on every big payout " oh we made a mistake" F*** em there fault not yours

ljonski

Did they pay out or offer to pay out anything? What exactly was the mistake. Post this on the Gambling forum above!

London50

If the Independent Betting Adjudication Service has ruled against you you will not get anywhere with anyone else. OK you can go to the newspapers but W. Hill will say that a mistake was made so end of story
I know it id frustrating but a mistake was made in the shop and nothing can or will be done.

Anoneemoose

When I worked for a bookies years ago, there were betting shop rules displayed on a poster and in leaflet form. These stipulated that any prices that weren't correct, did not have to be honoured and that the correct odds at the time of the bet being placed, would be used (or words to that effect).

Now I am not sure if these kind of things are still in place or if they are legal but I suspect they have something similar. I had a a customer who used to try it on and managed to get a bet past a newbie with incorrect prices. We didn't pay up and he didn't fight it much!

photome

whats the difference between the "correct" odds and the wrong odds, I assume they offered to settle at correct odds?

Johno100

ljonski wrote: »

Did they pay out or offer to pay out anything? What exactly was the mistake. Post this on the Gambling forum above!

That's a good point, surely they wouldn't be able to justify not paying out based on the 'correct' odds.

MarvGaran

NotRichAtAll wrote: »

personally i would go there and inform them that your going to the national papers with your story ie sun,star,mirror as a bet is a bet surely if this the case they could say that on every big payout " oh we made a mistake" F*** em there fault not yours

Coincidentally I emailed the major newspapers using their contact system and informed them of the situation.

MarvGaran

ljonski wrote: »

Did they pay out or offer to pay out anything? What exactly was the mistake. Post this on the Gambling forum above!

They offered £19.34 which they referred to as what the returns where meant to be

photome

MarvGaran wrote: »

They offered £19.34 which they referred to as what they returns where meant to be

a bit of a difference, how did the wrong odds get on the slip and what were the correct odds

MarvGaran

photome wrote: »

a bit of a difference, how did the wrong odds get on the slip and what were the correct odds

The staff member filled in the teams and odds and appears she wrote down the odds for the opposing teams. I'm not 100% sure what the odds were "supposed" to be