The online betting exchange said that lessons will be learned following the failure of their Grand National Starting Price market last Saturday but it remains confident there will be no repeat of the fiasco.
Prices returned in the Grand national market on a number of runners were originally significantly lower than starting prices returned on-track. Race winner Comply or Die was returned at 4.28 on the Betfair market despite going off at 8.0 on-track.
Betfair said a surprise deluge of backers outweighed the number of layers and resulted in a returned book with an overround of 166% rather than Betfair’s projection of no more than 102%. “We always thought from day one that some of our larger players would come in and make sure that the money was there but clearly in this instance that was not the case,” Betfair spokesman Tony Calvin told the Racing Post.
Once the problems in the market became apparent, Betfair altered the reconciliation process used to calculate the Starting Price and prices were enhanced with Betfair footing the resulting six-figure bill. Comply and Die’s Betfair SP was enhanced to 10.51. SPs on placed horses were also enhanced: King Johns Castle to 31.1, Snowy Morning to 31.1 and Slim Pickings to 15.1 from original Betfair returned SPs of 19.6, 10.61 and 9.18 respectively.
The decision to recalculate SPs led to the cancellation of some bets matched in the Betfair Win market before the start of the race. Following high-level meetings at Betfair on Monday, the betting exchange’s spokesperson stressed that all affected customers would be contacted and reimbursed. “There are some complex issues here but we have calculated what people are due, and they will be given exactly what they are due.”
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