Guy hits $609k win at Kentucky Derby through William Hill in Reno, only paid $35k

https://www.actionnetwork.com/horse-...-darren-rovell

This is a brutal story.

Steve Friedlander placed a bet on the Kentucky Derby which became a huge winner when horse Maximum Security was disqualified.

He went to collect and was only given $35k.

Why? Being a "non-parimutuel" location, the bets are capped, and apparently this is allowed. William Hill claimed that they prominently displayed signs informing people of the caps, such as this one:

https://images.actionnetwork.com/blo...lliam-hill.jpg

However, honestly that isn't clearly stating to gamblers what's really going on, and they should simply not take longshot bets which pay way beyond caps.

Friedlander filed a case with the Nevada Gaming Commission, which is still being looked into.

Awful.

So brutal.

Is this book really "William Hill"?

This is 1000x worse than the Draftkings (or Fanduel?) fiasco that happened where they accidentally gave someone massive odds due to a glitch and then ended up just paying after ESPN ran with it on Sports Center.
That was NFL. This is Horse Racing. I doubt it will get that far.

We need to make this hit national headlines.

Gonna Guess he loses this one unfortunately.. Still nothing to sneeze at he won $35k sure its not the $600k plus but it appears at least at face value he wasn't paying attention and that the signs were more visible then he claims.. Lesson learned Id say for him.. Next time make sure you know the rules.. California has this issue with their MegaMillions and Powerball Lottery tickets.. It is actually parimutual which means you could win more or less then the fixed prizes every other state has (Only the jackpot is parimutual across the country on those two lotteries). It also means you cant pay the extra to win a multiple of the prizes in CA either if you buy a ticket meaning if you hit a match 5 its at most a million give or take vs potentially 5-10M if you do the MegaPlier on MM or PowerPlay on Powerball..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ftpjesus

Gonna Guess he loses this one unfortunately.. Still nothing to sneeze at he won $35k sure its not the $600k plus but it appears at least at face value he wasn't paying attention and that the signs were more visible then he claims.. Lesson learned Id say for him.. Next time make sure you know the rules.. California has this issue with their MegaMillions and Powerball Lottery tickets.. It is actually parimutual which means you could win more or less then the fixed prizes every other state has (Only the jackpot is parimutual across the country on those two lotteries). It also means you cant pay the extra to win a multiple of the prizes in CA either if you buy a ticket meaning if you hit a match 5 its at most a million give or take vs potentially 5-10M if you do the MegaPlier on MM or PowerPlay on Powerball..

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No offense FTP, but, if all the facts are true, and this was a William Hill backed book regulated in Nevada, I think this is such a bullshit way to rationalize the situation.

He walked into a Nevada State regulated book that acted like a scummy online anonymous 3rd tier crypto casino that paid $1k a year so they could pretend to be regulated by a ghost in Costa Rica or Antigua.

"The player deserved it" is bullshit.

Happy Anniversary PASPA

To your point duped_, NJ Gaming is kicking the snot out of Vegas. NJ is far more progressive with what is allowed in term of props and promotions for sports wagering. Far more customer centric and responsive.

For example, GOT type entertainment props (small caps) are going to blow up in NJ long before Nevada. NJ is far more interested in growing the consumer and the industry.

For those wondering, parimutuel betting is a form of betting where the players are all betting against each other, and the house takes a fixed percentage.

Most horse racing is like that, hence the ever-changing odds (including on already posted bets) until betting is closed.

Parimutuel betting protects the house from variance, and it also removes most incentive for the house to pull shenanigans. This also allows the house to offer longshot bets, as they are covered by the parimutuel prize pool.

This particular William Hill location was NOT parimutuel, so they had caps on payouts in order to protect themselves from the variance of super-longshots hitting.

The unethical part comes from taking these super-longshot bets when you can't pay them.

Let's say we played a game where you would pick a number from 1 to 1,000,000, and if it was the number I wrote down on a piece of paper before you guessed, you would win $1,000,000. Otherwise you'd lose $1.

Now, let's say in order to reduce the damage if you get super lucky, I only pay a maximum of $20,000. Would you still do this game with me? Obviously not. And I'd be unethical to offer it to you unless I was REALLY, REALLY CLEAR about how bad odds you're getting due to the cap.

It looks like William Hill is only minimally up front with this situation, and seem to be disclosing it just enough to be legal.

Really scummy.

They shouldn't even offer bets like that if they can only pay out 6% of them.

Why would you expect pari-mutuel odds when your money didn't go into the pari-mutuel pool? No bookie can realistically offer 11,000 - 1 odds (the approximate odds of the trifecta). They must cap the winnings or the odds.

Could he have bet the pari-mutuel in any way without physically being at the Kentucky racecourse?

Yeah it sucks the guy didn’t know the odds were capped but I don’t think it’s anything unethical. I always thought it was pretty common knowledge that track odds arent always paid when betting thru a bookie and / or sportsbook. Many bookies will not take exotic bets at all because of their inability to pay huge scores. This WH pays up to 500-1 which covers probably 99.9% of all payouts. The one this guy hit is a freakishly
Rare result.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawnFanningsLimpDick

Why would you expect pari-mutuel odds when your money didn't go into the pari-mutuel pool? No bookie can realistically offer 11,000 - 1 odds (the approximate odds of the trifecta). They must cap the winnings or the odds.

Could he have bet the pari-mutuel in any way without physically being at the Kentucky racecourse?

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Another William Hill book a few miles away was in the parimutuel pool, so yes.

My issue was with the poor disclosure, not the cap.