Reportedly, a former employee of Ladbrokes has revealed that the British gambling operator had knowledge about an issue associated with its software systems which ended up with cancelled customers’ bets.
As The Guardian revealed, a former employee of the British bookmaker has told the media that the company was actually aware for several months of the problem with its software systems, because of which some customers were able to see unique receipt numbers of bets which the trading department of Ladbrokes had rejected. Such receipts have normally been issued after a bet has been accepted. The gambling operator, however, preferred to ignore the issue and the problem has remained unsolved for some time because of concerns regarding the possible effect on its profitability.
Back in November 2018, The Guardian reported the existence of a problem with Ladbrokes’s procedures for accepting and refusing bets. As it became clear at the time, customers whose bets had to be approved by traders reported that from October 2017 on they were seeing receipt numbers along with their requested stakes. At the same time, their account’s balance was debited as if the bet had been accepted, no matter that some of these bets had been refused by traders. At a later stage, these bets were displayed as cancelled, rather than declined by traders on the customers’ accounts.
Ladbrokes Considered Fixing the Problem without This Hurting Its Profitability
According to reports, some of the Ladbrokes’ customers who had experienced that, received out-of-court settlements after stating their intention to take the gambling operator to court for unpaid bets they believed had been accepted. Some of the customers filed complaints with the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS).
Subsequently, in December 2018, Ladbrokes published a statement, according to which, a so-called technical glitch had been identified by the gambling company following a full and forensic technical investigation. As explained by the firm at the time of the statement, only “very small number” of customers had been affected by the problem and pledged that it would get in touch with these customers to warn them about the issue regarding bets they might have considered accepted.
Now, The Guardian reported of a former employee of the British gambling company who suggests that Ladbrokes had known for the problem for a long time and actually worked on solving it but the issue was “on and off”. The firm was unable to change anything at the time of the big race meetings, so due to the problem, some punters were left with the impression their bets were on after seeing an open bet ID.
As the former Ladbrokes’ employee shared, that several meetings were held to discuss the most appropriate actions which the company should have taken but such actions would have had a serious impact on its profitability of the firm. A number of IBAS cases associated with the cancelled bets at Ladbrokes were closed in December 2018 following the gambling operator’s announcement to assure that the affected customer would be paid. As found by The Guardian, there is still one case on the issue which remains open and it is still not clear why there has still not been a settlement on it.
- Author
Olivia Cole
