I recently came across a news story that has left me quite concerned. It was about a man named Liam Manifold, a 30-year-old maintenance engineer from Staffordshire who placed a bet with Coral bookmakers nearly two weeks before the World Cup started. Liam combined three outcomes in a treble bet and placed a £10 stake, which gave a total return of £14,950 if he won. One of his selections was that Messi would be the player of the tournament.
Fast forward to after the World Cup finished, and Messi was indeed the player of the tournament. Liam went to collect his winnings of £15,000, but Coral bookmakers refused to pay out, claiming that the bet was a related contingency, and that they were changing the odds of the original bet after it happened. They offered Liam around 4.4% of the total payout in comparison to the original figure.
I found this to be quite worrying because Coral had accepted and documented Liam's bet, but only refused to pay out after he had won. Coral claimed that the betting price should have been smaller because the different outcomes were closely related to each other. However, Liam placed the bet in good faith, and Coral chose to offer the prices for the different outcomes, accept the bet, and register it on their internal system.
The fact that Liam spent two weeks going through Coral's complaint system with no success is concerning. The UK gambling commission's second licensing objective is to make sure that betting is fair and open, yet it appears that all of the responsibility is on Liam here. If he makes a mistake, he loses his money, and if Coral makes a mistake, it also appears that he loses his money.
This incident raises several questions about the ethics of the gambling industry. Large betting companies like Coral spend millions of pounds on identifying consistent winners, reducing their odds, and restricting their stakes, and even identifying their handwriting on betting slips with the use of artificial intelligence. If they can do all of this, why can't they improve their due diligence and check-in procedures to ensure that bets are fair and open for all customers?
Liam's case is a prime example of how betting companies like Coral need to take more responsibility for their actions. Liam placed his bet in good faith, and it was accepted and documented by Coral, yet they chose not to pay out when he won. This is not fair, and it hardly seems open as per the company's licensing conditions with the gambling commission. I hope that this incident raises awareness and prompts the gambling industry to take a closer look at its practices to ensure that they are fair and transparent for all customers.
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