This story was published more than 5 years ago.
A New Jersey man will take home $82,000 from a bet he placed on an NFL game after FanDuel's automated system mistakenly gave him 750-1 odds on the match.
Anthony Prince placed a bet at the Meadowlands Racetrack on an automated system that erroneously gave him 750 to 1 odds for the Denver Broncos to win. At the time the bet was placed, Denver was losing 19-17 with a minute left in the game. Denver went down the field and kicked a field goal with six seconds left to go to win 20-19. The system was supposed to give odds of 1-6 on the result, as the field goal was only 36 yards, which had an 85% chance of success. There were 11 other customers who got the odds, although the others all had much smaller wagers.
Initially, FanDuel refused to pay out the win, citing that it wasn't required to pay out a win that was obviously a systems error. The company then consulted with gaming regulators in New Jersey and changed course, likely after they were told the case likely wouldn't go their way.
In a statement, a FanDuel statement read: "Above all else, sports betting is supposed to be fun. As a result of a pricing error this weekend, it wasn't for some of our customers. These kinds of issues are rare, but they do happen. So, this one's on the house. We are paying out these erroneous tickets and wish the lucky customers well."
To capitalize on what could be a PR disaster, FanDuel will hand out $1,000 a piece to 82 random customers.
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Comments
Wow, FanDuel is just getting beat up in their early years I'm thinking, I have heard lots, all negative stories also. They should have just paid those people out, would have been a dead stick and no bad publicity at all, now its turned into at least a little bit. No gaming site has ever done good by refusing to pay people out for reasons outside the already written and agreed upon terms & conditions. Hope them bounce back, I've had some fun at FanDuel lol
sharpe
This shows the good that having an effective regulator does. It is pretty clear that if they weren't regulated they would not have paid for their own mistake. I wonder how many customers that they refund who accidentally bet $100 instead of $10 and lose? I'm betting on zero. So it should work both ways: they make a mistake, they pay for it.
sharpe
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I'm pretty sure if I was placed that bet here at Bet365 for example at the same wrong odds the stake would of been void.
It happened once or twice with me before but the wins were too insignificant to worth a challenge, anyway I'm happy for this guy whatever might be the reason for the FanDuel's decision - bad publicity or anything else.
Amen.