SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
IBAS, the Independent Betting Adjudication Service, has clarified its position on matters related to settling disputed bets between bookmakers and customers.
Recognised as the UK’s most referred-to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service, IBAS issued its response related to this weekend’s BBC article referencing its ADR service used by customers to challenge the outcome of disputed bets.
The BBC highlighted concerns by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) that wrong results were being determined by bookmakers due to inaccurate data being recorded from feeds provided by third-party partners, monitoring match events.
Of significance, disputes on bet-builder outcomes were highlighted as customers ‘felt robbed’ by inaccurate data used to determine match statistics.
The article referenced IBAS’s Richard Hayler, who detailed that “nearly 300 people tried to appeal their football data bets”, and that data disputes “made up around 15% of their workload.”
On arbitrating disputes, the BBC reported that the “betting resolution body admits it is frustrated by the subjective nature of these markets, but it does not overturn the vast majority of cases.”
IBAS has responded to the context of the BBC’s article stating that although accurate, readers must understand that disputes are a “matter of fact vs matter of opinion”.
“At IBAS, we have made no secret of our frustration at this type of betting. There are so many matters of fact on which bets can be placed and settled with confidence.”
“The majority of these football statistical betting markets rely on matters of opinion. From our experience, that makes avoidable disputes inevitable.”
As such, IBAS notes that its ADR functions to ensure bets are settled fairly but cannot dictate the markets or bet-types bookmakers can offer to customers.
On inaccurate outcomes, IBAS is focused on the fairness of data used. It therefore holds the opinion that it is “fair for a bookmaker to name an independent provider of data to explain to customers how their bets will be settled. It is fair, in principle, to use that data to settle bets.”
Related to the context of the article, IBAS asserts that its role is to assess the fairness of a settled bet, not to judge the accuracy of data agencies used by bookmakers or whether a sports event had the correct result. However, observing conflicts, IBAS is “concerned that there is an imbalance in the fairness of access to the data agencies”.
“Specifically, we believe that if bookmakers are able to directly query the decisions of an agency about how events are classified, a mechanism needs to be made available for punters to query those decisions too, recognising the practical challenge of the scale of queries it might generate.”
Given the growing popularity of bets referencing match statistics, IBAS recommends that efforts should be made to standardise data to avoid confusion and disputes. The recommendation is underscored as some sports have managed to achieve uniformity in data across different agencies.
Improving the fairness and accuracy of bookmakers is a key objective of the Gambling Review’s White Paper, proposing the establishment of a Gambling Ombudsman.
The funding and framework of the Ombudsman are to be determined by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), which has not provided a progress update for stakeholders since the publication of the White Paper.
Concluding its response, IBAS emphasised the importance of transparency in betting markets and has reported its concerns to the Gambling Commission. They encourage bookmakers in the IBAS ADR scheme to clearly disclose which data provider they use to settle bets.
“We consider it imperative for everyone to understand what they are betting on when they place a bet. For a number of years, we have encouraged those bookmakers who participate in the IBAS ADR scheme to make it clear where they offer statistical betting markets, which data provider they will use to settle bets.”
