[Gr8Scott]

Today i placed a wager on UEFA CUP Sparta Prague.
I went out and when i came home i saw that Sparta won, i logged in to my SIA account and see that they had void my wager. They did not email me or call me to tell me this.
The reason i got was that the other teams name was misspelled.

Can they really do this?

[acw]

They do that when you win! It is called Irish bookmaking!

[Stumpage]

Originally Posted by Gr8Scott

The reason i got was that the other teams name was misspelled.

I have now officially heard everything as of 11/30/06.....Wow.

[moses millsap]

Originally Posted by Gr8Scott

The reason i got was that the other teams name was misspelled.

Garbage book, beyond ridiculous excuse for voiding the wager. Get in touch with Bill and see if he can help.

[Chuck Sims]

SIA has been cancelling winning wagers for years. Wait until you have a longshot future bet that is about to cash. They'll cancel the bet 2 months after the bet was made citing a "bad line". They are a shady book. Avoid them.

[BadAzz]

Just out of curiosity, how was the name misspelled? Did the erroneous spelling resemble a name of another team?

[Doug]

They don't use rotation numbers, which I find annoying.

[louis]

I know that you did not realize it until the game was played, but did they void the wager before, during or after the game?

[pags11]

didn't know that chuck...should have expected that from these guys...

[LGBoots]

From reading other Forum complaints about this game. apparently it was Voided 15mins before the start.

[rolemand]

and had you lost you'd be thanking them.

[Gr8Scott]

Originally Posted by rolemand

and had you lost you'd be thanking them.

So you think its ok to void winning wagers without telling the players? it would be better if the bet did not won, but still it does not feel ok to void ANY wagers becouse the other team is wrong spelled.

[TLD]

Depends on the “spelling” error. I can imagine some that are trivial typos and obviously wouldn’t warrant what they’ve done. I can imagine some that generate significant ambiguity as to what team is meant.

[knicknut]

My favorite SIA experience was when I got the reverse of the +/- spread I thought I was getting. I complained and they called it a "moving line" not a "bad line" and refused to cancel it.

The bet ended up winning, and afterwards they e-mailed me "we saw your bet won. Would you like us to cancel it now?"

Now I've heard everything.

Not to sidetrack, gr8. You deserve your money.

[BuddyBear]

As a long time SIA player I must admit this kind of news makes me cringe. Fortunately nothing has ever happened to me....then again I only bet sides and use Neteller so the probability of things like this happening to me are lower.

I feel for you bro and I hope that Bill is able to resolve it if her can....

[Chuck Sims]

Originally Posted by knicknut

My favorite SIA experience was when I got the reverse of the +/- spread I thought I was getting. I complained and they called it a "moving line" not a "bad line" and refused to cancel it.

The bet ended up winning, and afterwards they e-mailed me "we saw your bet won. Would you like us to cancel it now?"

Now I've heard everything.

Not to sidetrack, gr8. You deserve your money.

Wow!! Avoid SIA. They are scum.

[Santo]

There are no rotation #s for soccer, so not sure if that would have helped in this case.

[tacomax]

Out of interest, what were the two spellings of the team which are the centre of this?

And was the price offered in the region of the market price i.e. are they using the spelling issue to cover up a bad line or market overexposure?

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Santo

There are no rotation #s for soccer, so not sure if that would have helped in this case.

True, but there can be 100 CFB games, and standard rotation numbers are used by most every book, if you want to have an option to list games by time, that's cool !

I hope this wasn't something like voiding bets on Mississipi !

[CLIFF843]

The game was listed as "Austria Mgna v Sparta Prague", it should have been listed as "Austria Vienna v Sparta Prague". As you know these are 2 separate teams. If it was merely a typo there would have still been action.

All bets on this match were voided when the error was noticed - about 30 minutes before the match started. SIA apologizes for any inconvenience.

Cliff
SIA marketing

[knicknut]

Cliff, you should let your players know about this before the game, not just have the bet disappear from their bet histories with no notice. I don't disagree that the bet should have been voided, but that was handled terribly.

If you want to increase your level of respect around the community these kinds of things can't happen.

[Bill Dozer]

Cliff,

We received many complaints, as I'm sure you have, saying that the name used was simply a different way to list the team and that other books used the same listing. Below is one player's opinion on what happened.

I recently had a winning bet voided by Sports Interaction and was wondering if you would be kind enough to offer any assistance.

On Thursday night a soccer game took place between Austria Vienna and Sparta Prague. I saw that Sports Interaction were offering odds of 2.75 decimal odds on Prague, this was about the 2nd best price offered (BetClass had them at 2.78). The price was shortening and most other bookies had cut their prices.

At 19:30 UK time Sports Interaction voided the bet - 15 minutes prior to kick off. The text from the e-mail is at the bottom of this message. They failed to offer an explanation and they did not respond when I queried the voiding of the bet.

When I found out Prague were already winning the game 1-0 and this was the final score. I feel they owe me the winning from the £286.78 bet @ 2.75.
I've since found out that Sports Interaction voided because they got the team name wrong for Austria Vienna, they had the name listed as Austria Magna which is also correct. Last year a lot of the Austrian football clubs adopted the names of sponsors in their team name and Austria Vienna took the sponsor name Magna. I have looked at other betting sites and a few of them have Austria Vienna listed as Austria Magna as an example you will see that Gamebookers and Coral have Austria Vienna listed as Austria Magna on their match odds for this weekends fxtures. If you type Austria Magna into Google you get hundreds of thousands of hits.

This is clearly a case of Sports Interaction voiding because they had a liability on Sports Interaction, they had been too slow to cut their odds and realised they were going to get stung if Sparta Prague won the game.
They were asleep and were to slow to update their odds. The only error in the name is they made a slight typo, putting 'mgna' rather than 'magna', this is not a satisfactory reason to void the bet.

I want a full payout from Sports Interaction, I don't believe they have a case for voiding the bet.

I hope in some way you are able to help, but if you can't that's fine as well. My account ID at Sports Interaction is ********

[ttmopp]

True, there are two teams from Wien: "Austria Vienna MAGNA" and "Rapid Vienna". The UEFA cup game was indeed Austria Vienna MAGNA vs Sparta Prague. SIA should honour these bets.

[TLD]

Originally Posted by CLIFF843

As you know these are 2 separate teams.

So this is simply a falsehood?

[CLIFF843]

I would like to apologize to the SBR forum and our customers who this mistake affected. We were unaware of all the dual team names that Austrian soccer teams may use.

This was a mistake on our part and we recognize this. All winning bets on Sparta Prague will be honored immediately.


Regards,

Cliff
SIA Marketing

[Doug]

good resolution.

[TLD]

Very good. Appropriate resolution.

[Bill Dozer]

Thanks Cliff and welcome to the board.

[bigloser]

Wow ! Well done SIA you might get a new customer.

[707782]

Now, that's the right thing to do, I will see how it goes and will become another customer of SIA if things are what it suppose to be.

Books just don't realize stupid things like this can cause them hundred of loyal and potential new customers, they might get away and hide once in a while, but clearly, in the long run, they will lose 10 times more than what they had gain unethically.

[Chuck Sims]

SIA got busted. They then came on this forum and lied. When that was exposed, SIA paid the winning wagers. This is a pattern with them. I would not go near this place.

[Yoshi]

Originally Posted by 707782

Now, that's the right thing to do, I will see how it goes and will become another customer of SIA if things are what it suppose to be.

You have to be kidding me lol, they got busted and are forced to do this. SIA is and will be a lousy book.

[Yoshi]

Originally Posted by CLIFF843

We were unaware of all the dual team names that Austrian soccer teams may use.

Give me a ****ing break...you are a sportsbook, and its your job to know such things BEFORE you start cancelling wagers like there is no tomorrow. Hilarious excuse...but some folks are stupid enough to buy it i guess.

[pags11]

SIA does seem to lie a lot...

[Santo]

Originally Posted by Yoshi

Give me a ****ing break...you are a sportsbook, and its your job to know such things BEFORE you start cancelling wagers like there is no tomorrow. Hilarious excuse...but some folks are stupid enough to buy it i guess.

To be honest I don't find it unbelievable that a North American orientated sportsbook wouldn't know that, especially if they don't usually cover Austrian league games, and only the European ties. If it was somebody like William Hill it would be less believable.