A few weeks ago, rumors started circulating that there was a glitch in the Betfair poker software package.
The glitch involved Betfair's "six-pack" Sit and Go's. Basically, if everyone at the table went all-in on the first hand, the first place winner would be paid out first place money, but the rest of the players would all receive full second place money. So, each sit and go was profitable for every player at the table.
A number of players soon figured this out and started working in concert with each other, opening as many SNG's as they possibly could and just going all-in every hand.
This continued for a number of hours until Betfair discovered the glitch. They froze the accounts of all the players involved; however some players managed to get a considerable amount of the "ill-gotten" funds off of the site and into their bank accounts.
Now, according to the Telegraph in the UK, Betfair is issuing a warning to the 20 players who managed to get money off of the site; pay us back this week or face possible legal action.
According to the article, Betfair is demanding the repayment of "more than 100k pounds" and goes on to say that they were "victims of collusion."
It will be interesting to see how many of the players, if any, end up returning the funds voluntarily. There is a section in Betfair's terms and conditions that protects them against people who profit from software glitches.
The interesting part of the story will come if the players don't in fact return the funds. This is obviously an embarrassing story for Betfair; do they want to prolong this story being in the news by pursuing legal action against the players, or will they simply hope that this threat results in most of the funds being returned and simply write off the rest?
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Filed Under: Poker Room News