Ladbrokes: unfair settlement offered for voided accumulator bet

According to the Daily Echo's Ladbrokes refuse to honour Southampton man's �7.1m winning accumulators article, a punter's successful accumulator bet on snowfall on Christmas Day was voided by Ladbrokes on the basis that the bet was placed in error, the subject matter not being valid for that kind of bet:

Standing in a bookmaker's, Cliff Bryant thought that a heavy snowfall had changed his life forever. Told by the cashier that his two accumulator bets had come in, Cliff was set to scoop �7.1m.

But his hopes were dashed when officials at Ladbrokes's head office told him that he was owed just a measly �31.78 ? because according to the company rulebook this specific type of bet should never have been accepted. Now Cliff, from Shirley, Southampton, intends to seek legal advice.

It comes after he placed two �5 accumulative bets on postcodes where it would snow on Christmas Day. Although he says that he was advised to do so by the cashier, Ladbrokes argues that it was a mistake and that he should never have been allowed to place the bet as an accumulator.

A money-spinning accumulator bet is a series of wagers where the winnings from the first bet roll over to the next and can only be won when all separate bets named are successful. But Ladbrokes says that according to its rules the bets should only have been accepted as a single bet and therefore Cliff was entitled to just over �30 as winnings. The bookmaker does not dispute that Cliff was correct in each of his bets, and another bookmaker, Paddy Power, confirmed that he would have won �4,922,800.31 on the first bet and �2,233,492.73 on the other.

The graphic designer, 52, said: "Gutted is not the word. This is a genuine mistake and if I make a mistake in my work like that it costs me dearly and I think the offer should be a lot more generous than they have made. Millions of pounds will have been spent on this bet at Christmas. How many of those people will have been allowed to place accumulators? They are one of the leading bookmakers in the country and I think they ought to do their homework a bit better in future."


Cliff has now called on Ladbrokes to make its rules clearer as they were not made obvious to him either in the shop or online.

The Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) is now investigating the bet.

Danny Cracknell, adjudication manager at IBAS, quoted a section from the Ladbrokes rulebook which said: "Single bets only are accepted, accumulative bets accepted in error will be settled as singles with the stake equally divided."

Ladbrokes spokesman David Williams said: "We have apologised to the customer for any confusion and for mistakenly accepting an accumulator bet when our own rules state that only single bets are available on a market of this nature. We are happy to void the bets and to pay the customer his winnings on the relevant singles."

Last night an independent solicitor said that Cliff 's chances of seeing his winnings were slim.

Rick Munro, commercial dispute resolution partner at Lamport Bassitt, said: "Generally speaking gaming bets are largely unenforceable. You rely on the goodwill of the people you are placing the bet with. There are some exceptions to this but the general rule is he wouldn't have a leg to stand on. It's about one of the only contracts in public policy where the contracts are unenforceable.

Is Ladbrokes right here?


An accumulator bet is a multiple wager on independent events; the ultimate success of the bet depends on the success of each component part. If one part doesn't win, the bet is lost. If all parts win, the accumulator wins.

Examples of legitimate accumulators would be:

• Betting on the winner and the runner up in a horse race.

• Betting on all four winners over an evening of boxing matches.

• Betting on the top ten gold medalling countries in the Olympics.


These bets would be legitimate because each component part is independent, and as such the odds of no individual bet is affected by the outcome of any other.

To give an example: if Joe Glassjaw is 1:5 to win the first boxing match of the evening, his success or failure has no impact on the subsequent matches, and Jim Chinaskull's starting odds of 1:4 in the next contest will remain the same, all other things being equal.

An accumulator on these two fighters would have fair odds of the product of the two independent, individual bets: (1/6) X (1/5) = 1 in 30, or odds of 1:29.


Snow, however, is a different matter.


If it snows in Leeds, it'll very likely snow in Bradford, ten miles down the road.

Twenty five miles further out, in Barnsley, we're also looking at a touch of the white stuff.

As such, if the odds of snow in any of these given towns on any given day are one to five, the odds for snow in all three at the same time are moreorless the same. Not precisely the same, as there is the possibility that the snow is limited to a small area, but near enough. The odds are most definitely not the product of the odds of snow in each individual town, otherwise we'd be looking at odds of one in 216 for snow in three towns within a thirty mile radius!


To take an more extreme example: if the odds for snow are again 1:5, and you make an accumulator bet on snow falling on each of the twenty trees in your garden, you're looking at combined odds of one in 27,000,000,000,000,000 (27 quadrillion).


All of which should make the point that you cannot make accumulator bets on events whose probability is affected by the outcome of the other events in the bet without radically adjusting the odds.


However, Cliff Bryant was quite spectacularly successful, predicting snow in all twenty three towns covering a total distance of about 200 miles. Clearly, the odds for snow in all twenty three towns on the same day are not the same as the odds for snow in just one town - they are much less.


It's fair for Ladbrokes to not pay out the 7.1 million claim, the individual bets clealy being non-independent. However, they need to make a better offer than �30. If he had not achieved all 27 wins, he'd have lost the bet, Ladbrokes would have taken his fiver and the discussion would never have occured.


Ladbrokes needs to offer a settlement that is a fair reflection of the true odds of the bet.


This matter has received a lot of coverage; see also the Telegraph bookmaker refuses to give �7.1 million payout on 'banned' snow bet article, and Sandracer blog article The UK weather is not something I'd like to bet on, which arrives at a similar conclusion to mine via a different route; also, Its cold here, but not quite -10 from the BBC.

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