30 gamblers fight betting firm for GHS600K jackpot

A group of individuals numbering thirty are up in arms against Winner Bet, formerly Myne Bet, a sports betting company, over what the gamblers claim is the company’s refusal to pay legitimate winnings after they placed some bets last year.

The group, which demonstrated against the company in Assin Fosu in the Central Region on Thursday, June 2, alleged that they had won in excess of GHS600,000, with eight of them having the largest of the alleged winnings.

Akuamoah Boateng, one of the betters, told ClassFMonline.com that he won GHS120,000 out of the total of GHS600,000, but the company was refusing to pay him. He said he placed a bet “on the winner of the Danish Super League [for the 2015/2016 season].”

“After one month, we heard that the people [Myne Bet] want all those who staked that bet to come for their money. But we did not send our slips for a refund because there is a rule that you can make an alteration within 10 minutes of staking a bet, failure to do so, you cannot make any changes,” he said.

He said they went to the betting company on Monday 30, 2016, to claim their winnings only to discover that “they [the company] had changed the software and the name of the company to Winner Bet, so when we put our codes inside, it said, ‘invalid’.”

He added that the branch manager was reported to the police, who effected his arrest. Officials of the company from Accra later went to Assin Fosu and asked the winners to come to their main office in the national capital for the issue to be resolved. The Assin Fosu branch manager of Winner Bet was subsequently released by the police.

The company, however, failed to find a solution at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, May 31, after which the gamblers decided to stage a demonstration on Thursday, June 2 in Assin Fosu to press home their demands for settlement.

Mr Fosu said: “If they [Winner Bet] fail to pay, the betters will not allow the company to operate anywhere in the country.”

However, lawyer for Winner Bet Yaw Boamah has refuted the claims by the betters that they had won stakes. He explained to ClassFMonline.com that in September 2015, bets were placed on various sporting competitions of which the Danish Super League was part.

“Certain odds were placed on those who will go on relegation. If a high-odd bet, which is most unlikely comes to pass, those who placed their bets on that particular odd win a high premium. When the bets were placed, it was indicated that the league leaders of the Danish League [at that time] will go on relegation and for that matter, a high premium was placed for that instance,” he explained.

“Unfortunately, when the bets were released by the parent company based in Cyprus, there was an error in indicating that the particular odds [which the aggrieved betters staked], were for relegation. But it did not also say that the odds are for champions. The word ‘relegated’ was omitted at the time of the prints; it was also not replaced by ‘winner of champions’.”

He further explained that it came to their attention five weeks later in the early part of November that there had been errors in the system that generated the bets.

“We then sent a memo to all betting points of our shops that there was an error with that particular bet so all those who had placed the bet should bring their tickets for a refund. A letter was written to that effect and pasted in all our offices. When they realised that it was an error, they decided not to come for the money but wait for the end of the season,” he added.

He noted that the betters then trooped to their offices that based on the day of the stakes and the results at the end of the season “their team has won the league and for that matter they have won, so we should give them their money.”

He said they had given an olive branch to the betters to have the amounts used in staking refunded to each of them to resolve the matter amicably, “but they cannot tell us that they have won the whopping amount, and so we should pay them that.”

On the issue of the change in name, he explained that the renaming of the company to Myne Bet as Winner Bet did not have any effect on the matter at hand.

He further clarified: “Assin Fosu is just a small component of [our] business as [we] have branches all over the country. What happens in Assin Fosu cannot cause the business to change its name. He indicated that the company was undergoing restructuring, a decision which was taken long before the current issue. The company has had rebranding plans on its table several months before the current incident so if they claim that because of this we are changing names, it is not true.”