He made three large bets

According to industry observers, one bettor's high payout was delayed for months due to a practice that sportsbooks are increasingly using as insurance.

There is a marketing slogan often used in sports betting: "Sweat the game, not the payout." In other words, gamblers need not worry about being overcharged when dealing with a legitimate sportsbook rather than a shady neighborhood bookie.

Bettors, however, say that bettors do not always keep their word, and some industry insiders agree. Bookmakers sometimes use the terms of the bylaws as an "insurance plan" to avoid paying out big winners, as one top regulator put it.See here for more insights into the challenges facing the betting industry and the strategies employed by bookmakers to protect their interests.

Hard Rock Bets recently voided three long-shot field hockey bets placed by Christopher Kozak in Tennessee - bets that NHL players would finish scoreless in the same game. The sportsbook, operated by the Seminole Tribe, informed him a few days after the games in question that his payouts were "clear errors" and that he was therefore under no obligation beyond a refund.

Kozak released screenshots of his bets and extensive correspondence with Hard Rock to the Washington Post. The messages show company officials repeatedly refusing to explain what the "error" was or what was "obvious" about it.

The company refused to answer questions from the Post. And last week, nearly two months after voiding Kozak's bet, the company agreed to pay him in full when questioned by reporters. He recently filed a complaint with the Tennessee Sports Gaming Council, but Hard Rock has not been ordered to pay, according to a company spokesman.

Betting Inside a Poke Shop, He Put D.C. Sportsbook Under Attack

The Tennessee Sports Wagering Council declined to answer The Post's questions about Kozak's case, how often sportsbooks cite "obvious errors" to avoid paying customers, and how the state determines what errors are and are not obvious. The Post declined to do so.

Virtually every sportsbook in the United States has similar open-ended language in its terms of service. The consensus is that bookmakers do not have to honor bets that take advantage of "fat finger" typing errors, such as listing the "over/under" point total for a football game as 500 points instead of 50 (in such a case, any bettor would be 500 points or less and would be confident of winning). However, according to six people involved in sportsbooks, operators are increasingly rescinding winning bets resulting from more opaque types of bookmaking blunders, sparking a philosophical debate that is dividing regulators across the country.

Many states have given sportsbooks considerable latitude to void winning bets after the fact simply because the odds or lines were significantly out of line with those offered by competitors. Some regulators, however, insist that, with few exceptions, a bet is a bet, no matter how much the operator wishes to withdraw besteonlinecasinoer.com.

David Levack, director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, said, "We're taking a hard stand. These [pricing] mistakes should not happen."

But Rex Beyers, who has worked at Caesars and other sportsbooks, estimates that at least one operator across the industry tries to void bets every day. Some degree of protection should be fair, says Bayers: if a customer tries to cash in with a blatant fat finger, "you're basically stealing money from the person who made the mistake." "

Mistakes seem to be piling up as sportsbooks offer ever more vast betting opportunities, primarily through props (team and player statistics) and in-game "microbets" such as whether a soccer possession will end up scoring. Sportsbooks are also pushing for same-game parlays, allowing customers to bundle props and take a chance on a large payout if each leg of the bet is hit.

In some cases, parlays can collect as much as $20 per $100, compared to as little as $5 per $100 on a traditional "straight" bet. But it is "basically impossible" to produce accurate odds in real time for thousands of hypothetical combinations every second of every day, says Ed Miller, a former executive at odds provider Huddle. For example, if one team's wide receiver makes a touchdown catch, that probably means the starting quarterback threw a TD. Odds Against

Bookmaking software can't explain all the correlations. They make mistakes. There's no way around it." But as he sees it, there is a fundamental difference between a blatant technical failure, such as listing popularity as an underdog, and an analytical oversight, whether human or programmatic. Too many sportsbooks use the "blatant error" rule as a "get out of jail free" card, Miller said, while letting casual bettors clean up their props and parlays, instead of being required to take down a flawed commodity and address its weaknesses, He stated that he has "repeatedly and indefinitely" voided big winners.

Kozak, a Chicago-based financial derivatives trader and experienced sports bettor, tried to take advantage of this type of vulnerability: on a trip to Nashville in November, he bet the NHL's same-game parlay 10 times at the Hard Rock sportsbook, winning three of them. In one $300 bet, he bet that eight players would not score in a game between the Anaheim Ducks and Florida Panthers and that Anaheim would score three or fewer goals. (Florida won 2-1). )

Hard Rock initially determined the 200-1 parlay to be the winner and deposited $60,000 into Kozak's account, but withdrew the funds five days later. Two similar parlays involving the Minnesota Wild and Ottawa Senators games, each of which should have earned about $36,000, were not appraised.

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