And yet, you can bet that they'd collect if the error were in their favor. And they probably have.
Absolutely disgusting.
Absolutely disgusting.
The imbalance is obvious even before the bet is placed.
It would be encouraging to see FanDuel just cough up the erroneous wager (which is surely cheaper than a lawsuit) and tighten down the definition of errors in spreads to something more specific such as anything outside like 2 standard deviations within the scope of a game*
*I'm not a gambler just someone who believes the definition of error can be mathematically defined for everyone's benefit
As long as there is no "I made a mistake, get out of jail free" card for bettors there shouldn't be one for the companies serving those bets either. FanDuel would have collected this man's money if the Broncos had lost and they would have collected his money if he had clicked this bet accidentally, to that end he deserves to collect his money.
I think the reason they won't is they don't want to set a precedent for future similar mistakes. If they pay out here they would almost certainly lose future similar disputes in court.
What they could do is pay this guy off, then follow the good press for a very likely net gain.
There should be clear cut laws surrounding clear errors, like there are in most places, and ones like this should not be forced to pay out.
This situation is much more comparable to, say, ordering something from a store that turns out to be out of stock. The store has to refund you for the sale, of course, but that's all they are on the hook for. They aren't punished beyond that, they don't even have to go out and find the item for you.
Otherwise there is no honor and incentive for them. Bookies have to live by their honor.
There is a difference between:
Ouch, that stung! Must do better.
That amount kills the business!
They own my whole enterprise now?
This is a sting. Quality control tax.
They should pay up, suck it up, maximize good will, and prevent it from happening again.
Given this gaffe, it is even odds they have pocketed more than this amount from errors going the other way.
No honor, no bets.
I would not place a bet with them now.
If for some reason the sales person does not do this and goes through with the sale at the erroneous price, sucks to be them. They had their chance to correct it and they failed to do so.
This is the same situation, except instead of a sales person, it’s a computer.
It seems to me that this is yet another instance where companies automate processes that previously involved humans, then compensate for the newly introduced errors by blaming the customer.
If you don’t want software bugs resulting in sales at absurd prices, maybe you should have a human review each order to make sure the numbers are sensible.
In either the digital or analog cases of your example, the end result is that the customer ends up paying the intended price. The only difference is that with the digital case, they might find out about it slightly later. How is this a "newly found error" in that case and how is it "blaming the customer"? It sounds to me like the potential for error has always been there and nothing about the assignment of blame has changed whatsoever between the two examples.
1. The error is corrected before the sale and the customer pays the corrected price.
2. The error is corrected before the sale and the customer changes their mind.
3. The error is not corrected before the sale and the customer pays the erroneous price.
Companies are trying to change a 3 into a 1 by blaming computers and saying the error should have been clear to the customer, when in fact it’s their own fault for not noticing the error before completing the transaction.
I had to make a call and go to the transportation office to settle the matter. They told me the shop was likely to suffer repercussions after the incident.
(On the other hand -relevant to the topic- an agreement may be declared void in the case of "obvious error"; so Fanduel could possibly have been off the hook if they had been operating in .nl .)
Would FanDuel void your bet if you misread the odds?