Last week’s Champions League game between Chelsea and Paris St. Germain was exciting for many reasons but not for Sky Bet customers who cried foul when the online bookmaker failed to honor odds after PSG’s dramatic comeback to secure a place in the quarterfinals.
According to the Daily Mail, some customers were furious upon learning that Sky Bet dropped the odds of PSG winning in extra time to 9/2 after the bookmaker’s mobile app initially posted a line of 25/1. What that means is an initial bet of $1 would have paid out $25, not $4.50 on the revised odds.
Sky Bet Managing Director Richard Flint admitted that the 25/1 odds were posted incorrectly but argued that the decision to drop the number when it came to paying out was in line with its terms and conditions, which explicitly states that the company reserves the right to “correct obvious errors and eaters settle bets at the correct odds or void bets.”
“Occasionally mistakes happen,” Flint added. “In this case a wrong price was displayed for around three minutes, and a small number of customers bet at the incorrect odds. These odds were clearly wrong – we showed odds of 25-1 when the true odds and the odds displayed by all other bookmakers was 9-2. We settled at the correct odds.”
Bettors weren’t buying the explanation, saying that the odds were posted when Chelsea was leading 2-1 in extra time and PSG down to 10 men because of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s red card earlier in the game. The bets were made anywhere from the 97th minute just after Eden Hazard put Chelsea on top with a penalty kick to the 114th minute when PSG’s Thiago Silva evened the score with a header to help the French squad advance on aggregates.
Labour Member of Parliament Graham Jones called Sky Bet’s decision to drop the odds “outrageous.”
“What would have happened if a rival firm had better odds but people chose Sky Bet because of the 25-1 odds? Customers would have lost out. You can’t change the price after the sale,” Jones added.
But apparently Sky Bet can, according to the small print on their terms and conditions.
