What is the future of “rampant” online betting? To hear politicians, state tax collectors and sports fanatics, it is a bright future. To hear reformed addicted gamblers, cyber security experts, sports historians and law enforcement, the future may be somewhat 
tarnished. Let’s explore a recent incident with FanDuel and you decide.
Let’s start with a “situation” that occurred on September 16, 2018, the second game of the NFL season. In the overall scheme of things, the Denver Broncos 20-19 win over the Oakland Raiders is largely irrelevant. To one FanDuel bettor, the game was a catastrophe.
Are You Sure?
During the Broncos and Raiders game, one FanDuel fan who was having a lousy betting day, happened to look down at his Smartphone and his bettor’s eyes nearly popped out. In the last minute of the game, in fact the last 26 seconds, the betting site posted amazing odds of 750-1 on the Broncos winning. The bettor, Anthony Price, figuring his luck couldn’t get worse, plunked down $110 on the Broncos. The Broncos won. Without going into a lot of gambling jargon, let’s just say that when the bettor (who should have won $82,600) went to collect his bundle of money, he was told that he was owed nothing.
FanDuel admitted that for a few seconds, the window of opportunity theoretically went from a near nothing payout, to a huge payout and they seemed somewhat contrite. The huge betting site offered Price $500 and three tickets for the next three Giants’ home games at MetLife Stadium. Price, who lives in New Jersey and is a Giants fan, turned them down.
Said FanDuel: “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.”
FanDuel A Hollow Apology
Yes, I realize that there are industry practices in regard to pricing errors. However, it does cast light on legalized sports gambling in New Jersey and in fact, the nation. New Jersey legalized sports betting in June. The relationship, after tens of millions of dollars in bets, has been pretty uneventful.
Mr. Prince, is a regular customer at the New Jersey sports book. He has sought out an attorney. Said Prince, “I won it fair and square, so I should get paid fair and square.” The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement is currently launching an investigation. FanDuel, with a staff of more than 400, is a multi-million-dollar organization with more than 6 million members. Many of those members are crying foul, especially those who saw the same error that Prince saw. There are many who feel as though FanDuel, being an extremely wealthy entity, should have attempted to settle for a significantly higher amount, just for its PR value. The negative publicity that is coming out of this “oversight,” may be a lot more than, lets say, a settlement for half (about $40,000). What will happen if a glitch of this nature should happen again?
The questions arise as to the possibilities of the spread, odds and payouts being manipulated or even hacked outside of the organization. At what points in the future will online betting sites simply shut down when they’ve made a mistake or feel as though the odds are out of their favor?
Ethically, it would seem that before the State of New Jersey allowed organizations such as FanDuel to set up shop in their state, it might have been worth discussions to ascertain with the gambling organization what safeguards are in place? There are some consumer advocacy issues at stake. While the state is seemingly “all-in” on gambling as a source of revenues, it would seem they owe the gamblers themselves some rational protections.
FanDuel should have paid the man.
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