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OT: FanDuel at Meadowlands makes $82K error, refuses to pay

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Doctor Worm

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Feb 8, 2002
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This was from Sunday's Denver-Oakland game. Late in the game, it is clear that Denver is in position to kick a FG to win. The line at that point is moved to Denver -600. But due to a system glitch, for 18 seconds the system was offering Denver +75,000! Somebody at the Meadowlands got in for $110 during that 18 seconds, and wound up with a winning ticket for $82K. FanDuel has declined to pay, and the fellow has lawyered up.

Will be interesting how this shakes out. I would think that FanDuel would not be responsible for an obvious error, but who knows.

http://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/i...t-honoring-bet-paid-more-82000-due-line-error
 
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I would assume there is some Vegas case law on this, although I am not sure what precedential value that would have in NJ. Not sure how much juries care about precedent anyway. Agree with Plum Street that this will never see the courtroom.
 
Tribal casinos use this flimsy argument all the time. "defective machine" they say. What's to prevent FanDuel from screwing anyone?
 
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This will either settle, or hit some unheard of gaming arbitrator. No way a judge in a municipal court ever sees this.
 
wicker said:
Tribal casinos use this flimsy argument all the time. "defective machine" they say. What's to prevent FanDuel from screwing anyone?
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Big difference IMO. This was obviously a mistake and the bettor knew it. He put down $110 and his ticket said pay $82K. I don't think he has any moral or ethical right to the money. But there is probably no settled NJ law on this, and even if there were, who knows how a jury would rule. Hence there will be a settlement.
 
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Doctor Worm said:
Big difference IMO. This was obviously a mistake and the bettor knew it. He put down $110 and his ticket said pay $82K. I don't think he has any moral or ethical right to the money. But there is probably no settled NJ law on this, and even if there were, who knows how a jury would rule. Hence there will be a settlement.
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How do you know if the bettor knew? That’s speculation
 
I've been using the DraftKings Sportsbook app for about a month now.
I feel no sympathy for FanDuel on this one. The profits they make on some of these in-game bets are ludicrous sometimes and mind boggling. I've seen middles where they might be offering as an example like -7,500 on the favorite and maybe only +2,000 on the underdog or some nonsense like that, in a sport like baseball or US Open, where there was no spread.

In football, it's not as bad in my limited experience. Like last Saturday, I grabbed Texas in-game as a -1 1/2 favorite when they were down a point, with the typical juice around -110 I guess.
 
No one is forcing you to bet in game lines. Of course they're going to be crazy.

This guy definitely knew what he was doing. All FanDuel is have to show how n that situation there has never been a line like that to show it was error.
 
Doctor Worm said:
Either FanDuel pays or no one does. The bettor transacted with FanDuel and they are on the hook. It will then be up to FanDuel to go after the software company.
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That's what I insinuated...FanDuel will have to pay/settle somehow because the software (right or wrong) allowed the user (whether he knew or didn't know it was an error) because of the software
 
Same thing with casino slot machines - malfunction voids all payments.....
 
On FD or DK, Occasionally you find a baseball player for $400 instead of $4000. They still pay out. Glitch or not.
 
I own an antique slot machine that works solely on the principal of unchanging odds. There are so many pictures on the three reels and they randomly rotate to their stop (assuming they are all in balance and have not been tampered with). The odds of hitting a true jackpot is not great, but it does happen from time to time and the machine pays off. Same for all of the other winning combinations of pictures. It is possible that you could have back to back jackpots and they even have a backup payoff for such a possibility. No excuses!
Today's gambling is all controlled by computer chips and it virtually guarantees that the machine is going to come out ahead at the end of the day. When either human error or some kind of electronic glitch occurs, they point to the machine not running properly. Of course it isn't running properly...it paid off! [pfftt]
 
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If this went to trial FanDuel's attorney's fees would exceed $82k. They'll settle for something less.
 
In Vegas I believe sometimes they'll honor the pay out and then tell you you're never allowed to bet in our casino again.

I also get it because it is all rigged BS. Imagine the customer saying I made a mistake and asked for their money back the casino would laugh in their face. Obviously it doesn't work that way but they have the gamblers by the balls.
 
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spare me......... obvious error........ ticket is void (they would probably pay the correct "market" win @the time).........
 
Businesses are allowed to make "mistakes" or have glitches for various reasons (see @ATIOH post above). If there are no precedents in such a case as this (my guess is there are), it might come down to whether FanDuel would have kept the bettor's money had he lost the wager. FanDuel has taken so many bets and made so many in-game adjustments in their history that there is probably enough of a precedent on their own books that would demonstrate their common practice. If it can be shown that they've made mistakes vis-a-vis potential (and extravagant) payouts and didn't refund the money to those bettors who took the losing side of those in-game bets, then my guess is they'd have to pay the full amount.
 
RU205 said:
Pay this man his money
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Let me help.

rounders-teddy-kgb.jpg
 
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ATIOH said:
I work in Finance and have some of my best trades reversed (broken) all the time.

It's bullshit, but the justification is to "maintain a fair and orderly market." It's built into just about any trading agreement, and I imagine there's similar language at FanDuel.

This guy got a lawyer, so I'd expect a very modest settlement, but otherwise the response is typically "go scratch" in these situations.
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Well a regulated Financial market and a bet on a web site are two different things.
 
This happened to me with online betting here in New Zealand (where online sports betting is legal). The odds on an All Blacks game clearly came up wrong during in game betting. I got $100 down on long odds against the All Blacks when they should have been against Australia. The mistake was only up for about 30 seconds, but I got the bet in. I think covered it when the error was fixed. Then they took my bet down about 10 minutes later. I wrote to complain that at least they should refund my cover bet. The wrote back showing me in the betting contract when you register that they are allowed to take down bets when something is wrong with the system. They also refunded me my cover bet. I think in this case, the guy doing the running odds simply got the teams reversed.

It was sweet for about ten minutes. I was going to make a couple grand.
 
WhiteBus said:
They really had no choice. They would have lost in court and they were getting bad PR. A trial would have been a nightmare for them.
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Article implies that the NJ regulators leaned on them to make the issue go away.
 
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