TEN Dispute

The following is the e-mail I sent to SBR re. my dispute with Tradebetx.com's boxing settlement. I've added relevant parts of the correspondence, so anyone can judge for themselves about this.

ginton

Hello Bill

Before sharing the details about the issue I am contacting you about I would just like to mention that I have found SBR a most useful resource over the last few years – many thanks to everyone involved in maintaining it.

My reason for getting in touch has to do with the settlement of bets I had matched at Tradebetx.com betting exchange on the fight between Jermain Taylor and Ronald Wright on 17^th July [this should read 17th June - ginton]. I understand that Tradebetx is part of the same group as Tradesports.com who have a B rating with yourselves. I was wondering if you might be kind enough to look at the issue that has arisen and perhaps get in touch with them on my behalf if you think this appropriate.

I am attaching the complete set of e-mails that I have exchanged with them at the bottom of this message so that you are able to make your own judgement, but to summarise the problem:

1. Tradebetx had a single market relating to the winner of the fight called ‘J Taylor to win’. As I’m sure you aware, this group of companies sets out their markets such that each betting possibility is expressed as a proposition which either will or won’t happen.
2. I wanted to oppose Taylor but a close fight was expected and the wording of this prop implied that in the event of a draw, bets *against* ‘Taylor to win’ would be winners, however instead of just assuming this I (i) read the boxing rules on the website and (ii) sent an e-mail to their CS. The rules, and the reply I got to my e-mail , confirmed that in the event of a draw this would indeed be the case.
3. I got bets matched on the Tradebetx.com site *against* Taylor to win, at average odds of approximately 1.74 decimal, my net position being to win USD 2308.80 if Taylor didn’t win the fight, with a liability of USD 1681.20 if Taylor did win the fight.
4. The fight went the full distance and was declared a draw on the judges’ cards.
5. Instead of settling my bets as winners, Tradebetx settled them as a push.
6. When I queried this, I was told that bets had been settled according to a contradicting set of rules which appear on an affiliated site Tradesports.com, which has bets voided, or ‘unwound’ as they put it, in the event of a draw.
7. I find this unacceptable and believe my bets should be paid out as winners, but Trade Exchange Network, who it seems own both sites, won’t budge, and I am not sure where to go from here.

What seems to have gone wrong here is that Trade Exchange Network own a number of betting exchange sites and match bets between customers who may be using different sites. I don’t suppose this would normally be a problem except that in this instance there is a ghastly mess in that they have multiple sites with differing sets of rules. I don’t know how this could have arisen – maybe they changed the rules at some point in the past and didn’t update them all across all sites, or perhaps they took over Tradebetx.com from another company and the rules didn’t get synchronized. I am assuming my bets were most likely matched against bettors using one of the other sites where bets are voided in the event of a draw. Whatever the reason, this mistake has left them with a liability which they are now trying to get out of instead of doing the decent thing and taking a hit by paying me out and voiding those bets I was matched against. The way I see it, is that my bets should be settled according to the terms and conditions of the site I registered with – those on an ‘affiliated’ site which I don’t use are irrelevant. The fact that they confirmed this ‘potential’ settlement before the fight took place only reinforces this.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that the company have since put altered rules on the Tradebetx site to match those on sister sites i.e with an extra clause to say that bets are voided if a fight ends in a draw. This is only sensible on their part, but it’s important to know that the revision only appeared on the following Monday.

I’d really appreciate it if you were able to have a look at this for me. The complete set of e-mail correspondence follows.

Regards

Xxxxxxxx

(My username at Tradebetx.com is ‘xxxx’ - my full name is Xxxx Xxxx and my account number there is XXXXXX)




It may not be appropriate to include the complete correspondence here on this site, but the relevant rule read:


*10.1.1

*Markets Listed*

* _Boxer A Wins_

Bets FOR: will be settled as winners if Boxer A wins the fight.

Bets AGAINST: will be settled as winners if he does not.

The reply I received to my e-mail enquiring about this the day before the fight read:

Dear Xxxxxxx,

Thank you for your query. In the case of the fight ending in a draw then bets against taylor to win will be settled as winners.

If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards,

XXXXXXXX

Exchange Operations