The Betfair fiasco

Almost all of my blog posts so far, have concerned tips: either the rationale behind them or a review of their performance.
It was always my intention to write on other matters – but I don’t have a great deal of spare time and the blog takes a lot of up-keep, even with me just focusing on this aspect.
However, the events of today on Betfair, have prompted me to create a non tipping blog post…

As is invariably the case, I was sat watching the Irish racing this afternoon and had placed a couple of bets on the Christmas hurdle at Leopardstown.
I tend to back outsiders on Betfair at inflated odds and then lay them back when the race goes in-running.
In this particular race I had backed Powerstation (whom I expected to front run) at 70 and Karabak (whom I thought had half a chance at 25).
Not long after the off, I was able to lay back my stake on both animals at odds lower than I had taken.
I then noticed that the second favourite, Voler La Vedette, was available to back at 29.
This situation isn’t that unusual, often well fancied horses can be backed at very big prices early in a race, because they are not travelling well or have made a mistake.
I couldn’t be sure that this wasn’t the case with Voler La Vedette, but I decided to take the risk as I hadn’t noticed any issue with her.
Sure enough, she was still cruising in the race – but 29 was available – and for a ridiculous amount (over £20mill !).
The longer the money remained available, the more sure I was that the bet would be voided.
I’ve been in similar situations before and invariably, if something appears too good to be true – then it’s too good to be true !
The reality is that errors do occur – and this was clearly an error – and quite a significant one at that !
It took Betfair a long time to take action, but around 4 hours later, the market was settled and all in-running bets declared void, which was fair enough – or was it…

For a start, this meant that my in-running lays on Powerstation and Karabak were voided – even though they weren’t affected by the issue with Voler La Vedette.

Also, what would have happened if the problem had occurred before the race had gone in-running. It would presumably have been just as easy for the problem to occur before the race started. Would all bets on the event have been made void ?

However, most importantly, what would have happened if Voler La Vedette had been beaten ? Would all bets have been voided in that scenario ? My understanding is that bets were voided because a customer (the layer) had been able to grossly exceeded their credit limit due to a technical fault. If the horse had lost, they would not have exceeded their credit limit – and would in fact have made £800K on the race ! That suggests to me that the bets would not have been voided…

I think that voiding the bets today was the right thing to do – but that is provided Betfair can demonstrate they would have voided the bets if Voler La Vedette had been beaten. If they can’t do that, then my bet today had no chance of winning – but every chance of losing and that simply can’t be right.
There are a lot of questions that Betfair need to answer but it is imperative that the they can demonstrate that they would have voided all bets regardless of the race outcome. I'm not an expert in the area and don't know who they are answerable to, or whether they need a licence to operate, but if they can't demonstrate that they run their business properly, then they really shouldn’t be operating – it should be as simple as that…
TVB.