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FanDuel, New Jersey gambler in dispute over potential $82,000 NFL bet (UPDATE: FanDuel responds)
Dustin Bradford
The legalization of sports gambling has been met with excitement by many, including two co-workers who shall remain nameless. But some growing pains are to be expected with such a quick transition into the booming industry of betting on games. And one Garden State gambler is already in a dispute with FanDuel over an $82,000 payout he thinks he deserves.
FanDuel, however, disagrees. So what's the problem? Shouldn't this be simple to solve? Don't you either win or lose a bet? Well, what happens when the bet never should have been taken in the first case.
Such is the case here as Anthony Prince made an in-game bet at the FanDuel Sportsbook at the Meadowlands on Sunday, taking the Denver Broncos to beat the Oakland Raiders with 1:10 to go in the contest and the Broncos losing, according to News12 New Jersey. Prince bet $110 on a plus-75,000 line and when the Broncos completed their unlikely comeback to win 20-19, he went to the window to collect his $82,610. Only he was told he wouldn't be paid in full.
"They said their system had a glitch in it and they’re not obligated to pay for glitches,” Prince said.
Now if you know anything about gambling — and we're pretty sure someone making $110 in-game bets does — you would know that a plus-75,000 line in that situation makes no sense. Clearly, FanDuel messed up, had a glitch, or whatever you want to call it. HOWEVAH, they did, technically, offer the bet. And Prince booked it with an actual person at the window at the sportsbook. So, again, this is tricky.
Prince said FanDuel offered him $500 and skybox tickets to three Giants games instead. That sounds like a decent consolation prize until you realize that watching the Giants play with that offensive line is actually a form of torture.
"The government is taxing it now so I thought it would be a better situation," said Prince, who plans on taking legal action. "You'd rather go to the corner bookies now. You're not getting paid here."
Well, for now. This should be a pretty interesting case if it actually goes to court. Anyone want to, um, bet on the result?
UPDATE: FanDuel issued the following statement on Tuesday night:
“The wager in question involved an obvious pricing error inadvertently generated by our in-game pricing system. Specifically, near the end of the Sunday afternoon game between the Denver Broncos and the Oakland Raiders, the odds for the Broncos (who had the ball and were trailing by two points at the time) to win were +340 (bet $100 to win $340). The next play, the Broncos completed a 26 yard pass to position themselves to attempt a 36 yard field goal to take the lead in the final seconds of the fourth quarter, clearly positioning the Broncos as the favorite to win. At that moment in the game, our system updated the odds and erroneously posted a price of +75,000 on the Broncos to win the game (bet $100 to win $75,000) when the correct odds for the Broncos to win the game at that point in time were -600 (i.e., bet $600 to win $100). A small number of bets were made at the erroneous price over an 18 second period. We honored all such bets on the Broncos to win the game at the accurate market price in accordance with our house rules and industry practice, which specifically address such obvious pricing errors. We have reached out to all impacted customers and apologized for the error.”