On the afternoon of Sunday, October 5, I found myself in a situation I'm sure many of you have been in before...
...out with the obligatory outing with the girlfriend, and missing NFL betting. Ah well. There are indeed other things in life.
At one point in the afternoon, she slipped into a restaurant to use the restroom. Being the sick addict that I am, I took advantage of the few fleeting moments to dial up one of my outs and see what was on tap.
It was second half time. The clerk read me the lines, and I told him the game and amount I wanted to wager. As he was processing it, my girlfriend comes out of the restaurant, and I deftly hang up the phone.
No readback, no confirmation, no nothing -- I did clearly tell him the game I wanted, and the amount I wanted to bet, but never got a chance to confirm.
Later, when I was by a computer, I was a little surprised to see that the bet did indeed count and get graded. I was even more surprised -- and disappointed -- to see that it lost! I briefly considered calling the book to complain. After all, their standard protocol includes confirming wagers, and I never confirmed mine, so how could it count? If confirming is not necessary, what's the point of the readback at the end of the call? On the other hand, it was no secret that I wanted the bet, that I asked for a specific amount, and that I had every intention of placing the wager.
I elected to eat the loss and not confront them about it.
But some two weeks later, as part of an email on another issue, the CS person responding to my inquiry emphasized the importance of the readback, that it was "final", and if there're any disputes, the tape could and would be listened to both by the book and the player.
With that information in hand, I did decide to take them to task for the wager from 10/5. I mentioned that no readback was given for that bet, and thus, it shouldn't count.
And what do you think they said? Sorry, the bet's final.
I don't know how to feel about all this. Are they right? On the one hand, the fact that I had every intention of placing the bet is beyond dispute. But what difference does intent make? What counts is whether you follow the proper protocol to place a wager. If I had missed out on an opportunity to place a WINNING wager, and called them after the game to cry "I meant to bet on the game but I didn't get home in time", obviously, they'd tell me what I could do with my "intent". So why is this different?
What I'm afraid of is that the book may have taken a shot at me. I had no access to a computer while the game was in progress, and I suspect that since I rarely make telephone bets, the book may have known that I must be betting that way because I didn't have a computer handy. I fear that they may have waited until the game was over and the bet was determined to be a loser before they adduced it to my account and graded it. Had it won, they could have not put it in my account at all and claimed that since I never went through the readback, it's not official.
What do you think?
...out with the obligatory outing with the girlfriend, and missing NFL betting. Ah well. There are indeed other things in life.
At one point in the afternoon, she slipped into a restaurant to use the restroom. Being the sick addict that I am, I took advantage of the few fleeting moments to dial up one of my outs and see what was on tap.
It was second half time. The clerk read me the lines, and I told him the game and amount I wanted to wager. As he was processing it, my girlfriend comes out of the restaurant, and I deftly hang up the phone.
No readback, no confirmation, no nothing -- I did clearly tell him the game I wanted, and the amount I wanted to bet, but never got a chance to confirm.
Later, when I was by a computer, I was a little surprised to see that the bet did indeed count and get graded. I was even more surprised -- and disappointed -- to see that it lost! I briefly considered calling the book to complain. After all, their standard protocol includes confirming wagers, and I never confirmed mine, so how could it count? If confirming is not necessary, what's the point of the readback at the end of the call? On the other hand, it was no secret that I wanted the bet, that I asked for a specific amount, and that I had every intention of placing the wager.
I elected to eat the loss and not confront them about it.
But some two weeks later, as part of an email on another issue, the CS person responding to my inquiry emphasized the importance of the readback, that it was "final", and if there're any disputes, the tape could and would be listened to both by the book and the player.
With that information in hand, I did decide to take them to task for the wager from 10/5. I mentioned that no readback was given for that bet, and thus, it shouldn't count.
And what do you think they said? Sorry, the bet's final.
I don't know how to feel about all this. Are they right? On the one hand, the fact that I had every intention of placing the bet is beyond dispute. But what difference does intent make? What counts is whether you follow the proper protocol to place a wager. If I had missed out on an opportunity to place a WINNING wager, and called them after the game to cry "I meant to bet on the game but I didn't get home in time", obviously, they'd tell me what I could do with my "intent". So why is this different?
What I'm afraid of is that the book may have taken a shot at me. I had no access to a computer while the game was in progress, and I suspect that since I rarely make telephone bets, the book may have known that I must be betting that way because I didn't have a computer handy. I fear that they may have waited until the game was over and the bet was determined to be a loser before they adduced it to my account and graded it. Had it won, they could have not put it in my account at all and claimed that since I never went through the readback, it's not official.
What do you think?
