Lakhvir Singh says TAB New Zealand doesn't want to pay him his winnings. Photo / Richard Robinson
Lakhvir Singh says TAB New Zealand doesn't want to pay him his winnings. Photo / Richard Robinson
Last weekend’s All Blacks-Ireland clash was a disappointment for one Kiwi who says TAB is refusing to pay him $5000 in winnings.
Lakhvir Singh said he tends to make obscure bets and put a bet on “no try scored within the first 15 minutes of any match” ahead of the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals.
“A few of us thought, is that every match or any one of the four [matches]?
“So I rang up TAB and asked, and they said yes, any of the four matches, no try in the first 15 minutes.”
After the phone call, Singh came away thinking he had good odds of winning and put a further $300 down on the bet, taking his total bet to $500.
Singh said it was only after three phone calls that he managed to get refunded for the bet because of the confusion, but he thinks he should still be entitled to his winnings.
Rajah Singh lost out on his bet after he was misinformed about its meaning.
“They admitted fault ... they said it should have been for all matches.
“It took ages for them to get back to us but in the end, they just refunded our bets.
“They didn’t actually give us our winnings, and they just said we don’t have to, we’re within our rights to not pay you out.”
“It’s just annoying to me that they would have kept my money if I hadn’t rung them up.”
TAB has recognised the wording was ambiguous and refunded the customers who were confused.
Consumer NZ communications and campaigns adviser Abby Damen said TAB had failed to meet consumer standards expected of it.
“Under TAB’s terms and conditions, if TAB makes a ‘substantial error’ it reserves the right to refund and/or void all bets. Provided these terms were made available to the customer before they made their bet, then they’re likely to be binding.
“However, TAB must also comply with the Consumer Guarantees Act and Fair Trading Act. In particular, it must use reasonable care and skill in providing services and must not mislead customers.
“We think TAB has failed to meet these standards and so should refund any affected customers.”
In a statement, a TAB spokesperson said the betting option of “no try scored within the first 15 minutes of any match” was priced at $10.
For this to be paid as a winner, no try could be scored within the first 15 minutes of all four of the quarter-final games and the $10 odds reflected that.
“Other than the All Blacks match, tries were scored within the first 15 minutes of the three other quarter-finals,” the spokesperson said.
“After receiving a couple of queries from customers who interpreted the option as meaning no tries in the first 15 minutes in one or more of the four quarter-final matches, we recognised the wording could be considered ambiguous.
“To provide further context around the ambiguity, the wording of “any match” could be read as “no tries can be scored in the first 15 minutes in any of the matches (one or more) for the bet to be a winning one” or “no tries can be scored in the first 15 minutes in any of the matches at all” (which was the correct interpretation), which is why it was ambiguous. Because of this ambiguity, rather than treating the bets as losing bets, we treated the option as “void” and refunded the bets.”
The spokesperson said they reviewed the wording following these customer queries after the Power Play option in question was resulted as a losing bet “and as an offer of goodwill, we have treated the option as ‘void’ rather than a losing option, and have refunded all bets on this option, which means customers get their money back”.
“Under Rule 12.7 of our Betting Rules, any substantial pricing errors based on ambiguous wording leads to bets being voided, and customers get their original stake returned to them.
“An option on no tries scored within the first 15 minutes in one or more of the four games would have had odds closer to $1.10.”
