BEFORE Glorious Goodwood (or Bloody Goodwood if you were primarily trying to watch the Galway Festival on RacingTV), I wrote a piece suggesting a few bets for the meeting.

Among the unmitigated disasters, I managed to stumble upon the Stewards’ Cup winner, which saved some blushes, but I’d also assumed that suggested bets on Bless Him in the Golden Mile would at least be returned after that horse, as expected, missed the cut.

This is a regular betting ploy of mine, with the logic being that horses are often priced up on the basis of their likelihood to get into the race, which is an error, given that ante-post betting rules state that bets on horses who are balloted out are void, not lost, so the risk of missing out need not be factored into calculations.

Unfortunately, it appears that despite these rules being in place since time immemorial, and not being open to the whim of individual firms, such bets are still being treated as losers in many instances, and even reasonable requests to bookmakers to read their own rules are not always sufficient to ensure satisfaction. This is a truly unsatisfactory state of affairs.

Let’s be clear here – it does appear that while ante-post bets on balloted out horses can be settled as losers by automated software, most firms do understand the rules, and either reconfigure the settlement criteria, or manually settle any such outlying bets when they are presented with them. That’s still not ideal, but I want to get the contest right.

Backing balloted-out horses sometimes requires a quick conversation with customer services in order to get settlement, and that is fine for experienced bettors, and the number of instances of absolute novices betting ante-post is reasonably small, so this small hardship isn’t the end of the world, and nor does it amount to profiteering by the firms in question.

The real issue is when customers know perfectly well that they are due a refund, and who inform the firms in question that they are due a refund, but are told point blank that their bets are losers, often multiple times, and despite clear rules to the contrary which all firms must abide by.

Payment refused

I was recently contacted indirectly by an experienced punter who backed a horse in the Unibet Golden Mile (see, Ed – I’m still naming the sponsor) who, like Bless Him, was eliminated.

The punter, as is the case for many betting ante-post, had backed the horse with various bookmakers, and while he has been refunded his stake by most, one firm has so far refused despite it being made clear that other firms had refunded, and that the universal practice is to do so in this scenario.

I’ve been provided with screenshots of his conversations with this firm where he explains his case, but the response is a simple – and deeply patronising – ‘no’ every single time. I really thought we’d got past this nonsense, but it seems we haven’t in some places, and those places belong to the firms who have the least excuse.

At this stage, I have no intention of naming the horse or the firm involved, let alone the punter, but that will change if this situation isn’t resolved, and firms do need to be named and shamed for failing to follow their own rules, even if it is merely stupidity and arrogance – as I suspect – which results in such scenarios rather than anything more sinister.

Trustworthiness, more than perceived value, should be the biggest draw for customers to any bookmaker, and the basic inability to settle bets correctly is damaging the reputation of an industry which needs all the help it can get to retain its customers.

So please, sort the ballots out!