Betfair see shares drop after fiasco

RACING/LEOPARDSTOWN FESTIVAL:THE FALLOUT from Wednesday's Betfair fiasco over the Voler La Vedette race at Leopardstown impacted on the company's share price yesterday as punter fury continued to be aimed at the betting exchange firm with some threatening legal action.

Betfair’s decision to void “in-running” betting on the race when a computer systems error contributed to a potential €27.5 million payout on Voler La Vedette resulted in plenty of negative publicity in Ireland and Britain and its share price dipped on the back of that yesterday.

It is understood the extraordinary events were at least partly due to a malfunctioning piece of computer software, or “bot,” which allowed a customer to exceed their exposure limit.

Voler La Vedette, a 13 to 8 second favourite for the Woodies Christmas Hurdle, was matched for almost €2 million in running on Wednesday at odds of 28 to 1 on Betfair. At one stage over €25 million was offered in running which theoretically could have resulted in a €717 million payout.

A couple of hours after the race, Betfair took the decision to void the race and defended that call yesterday in a statement. “We would like to reiterate that anyone betting in-running in the Leopardstown race clearly received a very poor customer service and betting experience. We apologise once again for this.

“We have identified the issue and replicated it in a test environment last night. A fix was applied overnight, and is now subject to rigorous testing. Contrary to some media speculation, we can confirm that all in-running bets on this market would have been voided, had Voler La Vadette won or lost. There was never any chance of the account in question profiting yesterday. The account in question was also immediately suspended after the Leopardstown race.

“There has been some criticism from customers, and in the press, that Betfair took too long to void. Quite simply, we made the decision after we were in full possession of all the facts and input from the relevant internal departments. A decision was then made to void in accordance with our terms and conditions,” it said.

Voler La Vedette’s trainer Colm Murphy said at Leopardstown yesterday: “She was never 28 to 1 at any stage of the race. Maybe she was 1 to 28! Fellas must have known something was wrong.”

YESTERDAY’S Leopardstown crowd of 8,537 brought the total attendance figure for this year’s Christmas festival to 54,518. Last year’s attendance figure was 30,172 when there were just three days racing due to bad weather. In 2009 the crowd total was 51,218. Yesterday’s bookmaker total of €775,568 brought the four-day tally for 2011 to over €4.3 million. A Tote figure of €271,735 yesterday resulted in a festival total of over €1.4 million.