Bwin Cancelling winning bets hours after the event

[stevelee]

Hi, I've had multiple losing disputes with online bookies over the years but only just learned about this forum. This is a copy of my dispute form to ecogra.

Dispute:
I placed a £300 bet on Raymond van Barneveld last night at 4/6 , the bet went on fine and "accepted". I then topped my bet up with a smaller £150 bet 5 minutes later having seen how nervous his opponent looked also at 4/6. Both bets were open after he had won. I took a photo of this before going to bed. This morning the bets have been voided due to being "late". If so, why were they ever accepted, and why weren't they voided within the hour of the match, instead voided hours after whilst they can check results. If he'd have lost the bet would've been settled as lose. This late bet was by 2minutes and it was in-fact 15 minutes before the game started. Their estimated start time wasn't displayed on the site (to my knowledge) and even so they shouldn't be allowed to accept bets which aren't valid, putting the player in a lose/lose situation, I've phoned them up and they aren't even offering a goodwill free bet. This is really out of order and I hope you can help me.
Best Regards

Any thoughts guys??

 

[Trevrizent]

This is a tricky one. Assuming that they weren't offering 'in-play/live' betting on the game, then they presumably have voided your bets under A3.3 of their General Betting Rules ('Late Betting'). However, these rules state that any bet is invalid if that bet is placed 'after the beginning of the betting event'. If you can prove, therefore, that your bets were both placed fifteen minutes before the actual match started, then I don't really see that they can object, given that their Terms and Conditions talk about 'the beginning of the betting event' and not 'the advertised time of the betting event'.

Personally I wouldn't touch BWin with a barge pole, even though a lot of players like them. I've seen and read dozens and dozens of sets of bookmakers' Ts & Cs and theirs are some of the most opaque and bewildering I have ever come across (and that's saying something). I doubt you'll get anywhere with ECOGRA, but you might consider contacting the UK Gambling Commission (by whom BWin are licensed in respect of their UK customers) about this (tell BWin first that you intend to make a formal against them to the UKGC if this matter is not resolved to your satisfaction). You should also consider making a complaint via Bookmakers Review (use the address at the head of the list of forum threads).

I agree with your point about the lose/lose situation. I don't believe for a second that BWin would have voided your bets if RvB had lost.