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Football

09th Mar 2017

Bookmaker tries to deny the greatest bet ever with the stingiest rule of all time

They've quickly changed their minds

Conan Doherty

Ah, here.

Bets don’t get much better than this but rules don’t get much lousier.

On Wednesday night, the world gathered around with little to no hope of anything happening in the Barcelona and PSG game but, like everyone should always do religiously, we watched anyway. Always be watching football matches. Always.

What unfolded was simply indescribable but we gave it a bad attempt anyway.

Some people, very few people, saw it coming though.

David Reid took a punt to end all punts when he asked BetVictor for odds on the following:

  • Messi to score a penalty.
  • Cavani to hit the woodwork.
  • Barcelona to qualify.

125/1. That actually seems pretty short considering what he was asking for.

Messi to score a penalty: check.

https://twitter.com/miguelredders/status/839581637692256263

Cavani to hit the woodwork: check.

Barcelona to qualify: Check f**king mate.

But BetVictor weren’t playing ball.

https://twitter.com/davidreid_88/status/839595049528721408

And they weren’t too keen to talk about it in depth for too long.

https://twitter.com/BetVictor/status/839596818929430529

Read the small print, MATE.

https://twitter.com/BetVictor/status/839597171162951686

As you can probably imagine, their ‘rules’ didn’t go down well.

But come the morning, thankfully, they decided to see a bit of sense and pay out.

One man’s sense is another man’s ‘goodwill gesture’.

https://twitter.com/BetVictor/status/839717400891228160

And David wasn’t that easily appeased.

https://twitter.com/davidreid_88/status/839753764206686208

BetVictor has since released a statement regarding last night’s decisions and then the thinking in overturning the bet and granting it as a winner.

Their rules for woodwork-related bets reads as follows:

‘The ball must make contact with the woodwork and come back in play from an attempt on the opponent’s goal during active play. Shots that hit the woodwork on their way into the goal will count.’

They’ve done the right thing in the end, in fairness.

“We accept that in this case with #PriceItUp markets, these terms were not made clear within the individual bet, and, as such, have now settled all bets on this selection as winners. All of the customers involved have been individually contacted by us.”

And the rules have been revised.

“We can confirm that any shot that hits any part of the woodwork will count going forward.”

No shit.

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10