Following on from the story published in Guardian Money in July 2014 about the poor fellow who didn’t get his 66/1 bet on as there was no member of staff to take it, I’d be interested to know what you think of my situation with William Hill.
I placed a £100 double bet on two football matches which required both teams to score in each game. One was a winner early on, and the other I watched on my phone and via “Live In-Play” betting on William Hill’s website. I couldn’t believe it when, in the very last minute, the team I was waiting on in the second game got an equalising goal.
William Hill duly settled the bet and paid the £759 winnings into my account. I double-checked that the game had finished 1-1 and that both games were over, and they were.
But 35 minutes later the money was taken back without warning, and when I called I was told that the bet was not settled and that William Hill was within its rights to do this. I received a pathetic response in which I was told simply that the bet was deemed a “losing” bet, and there was nothing I could do, although it was acknowledged that a mistake had been made. GS, West Mains, East Kilbride
We can understand your frustration at having your winnings disappear almost as quickly as they had appeared!
We contacted William Hill, which said it relies on third-party providers to give the correct information about results. It said in a statement that you had “followed the progress of the matches on our in-play scoreboard, with the first game finishing 1-1. In the second game – Chacarita Juniors v Villa Dálmine [in Argentina] – we received an incorrect late goal from our third-party incident provider and the match was initially settled incorrectly as 1-1. The customer’s account at this stage was credited. Twenty minutes later the score was confirmed as only 1-0 and we re-settled the markets, and his ‘both teams to score’ bet was correctly reversed as a loser.”
The company says that given the circumstances, and despite its rules “making it clear that we cannot be held responsible for incorrect data”, it has credited you with a £100 free bet as a gesture of goodwill, and has contacted you to confirm this. It went on: “We make every effort to ensure Live In-Play information is correct, in the interests of providing the best customer experience we can, but mistakes can be made.”
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