Bet McLean Catastrophe – Irish Punters Please Help

This week has been extremely lucrative for Irish matched bettors. BetMcLean’s offer on Galway and Goodwood Races has provided me with almost £1000 in free bets.

Yesterday, I used £100 of my free bet balance on a treble with total odds of 28.6. I used a spreadsheet to calculate a sequential lay method and guarantee over £150. The treble went onto win – this gave a return of £2760 in McLean and I lost £2600 in Smarkets.

Later on last night, I withdrew almost £3000 from my then considerable McLean balance. Nothing was amiss as I went to sleep last night.

This morning at 11am, I receive a phone call from a withheld phone number. I’m told I’m speaking to the McLean company and am expecting to told I have been gubbed from the promotion. Instead I am told my £100 free bet on the 28.6 treble has been “adjusted” as hidden deep in their ts and cs was a clause that free bets were for use on singles bets only. I ask what the new adjusted return is… £193

That’s £2567 down on the original return. I’m pretty sure this qualifies as a genuine “disaster”. Because I was down £2600 on smarkets from laying the said treble my net position is -£2407… the withdrawal I made the night prior has been blocked.

Unsurprisingly I intend to fight against this decision. The one foothold I may have is that I was never prevented by the website from placing the treble. They also had absolutely no problem accepting free bets on doubles and trebles that turned out to lose. I also can’t believe the £193 return from the original £2760 is a fair settlement.

On the other hand, this rule was in the terms before the promotion started so perhaps they are in the right here.

What would be the best course of action to at least get some of my return back? Would filing an appeal to IBAS be a sensible option? Is there any other authority I can turn to?
How would be the best way to negotiate with BetMcLean?

I recall some posters at the start of the week warning to be careful with this McLean offer as they are associates of Boylesports and ApolloBet. But I think what they meant was the promotion being pulled early, rather than this awful situation.

If there’s anything I’ve written here that doesn’t add up please don’t hesitate to point it out.

Understandably, I would be extremely grateful for any advice of any sort… thanks very much guys.

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theslosty
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July 30, 2016 at 3:39 pm

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Dave_Jones 7 July 31, 2016 at 10:05 am

Really sorry to hear about this, as you say it wipes out 5 months of work in one go that must be awful. I’m not sure if the national press etc would be that interested, I suspect the story might just be too complicated for them, they tend to like nice simples stuff that make easy head lines.

Not sure about the local press either, does this bookie advertise in that local paper you mentioned, if they do then its very unlikely that paper would want to upset someone that pays them advertising money.

There are one or two legally trained posters that use the matched betting forums over on the MSE site, might be an idea if you ask there.

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DECKYMC 0 July 31, 2016 at 2:01 pm

I have also been caught out! Accumulated £150 free bets and tried to place this full amount on one bet. When placing the bet I Got a message to say the maximum bet allowed was £110 which I then placed. The horse went on to win at nice odds and the winnings credited to my account. I logged on the next morning to find that ALL the winnings had been removed. I contacted them and they advised me it was because the maximum bet allowed was £50. They amended the winnings and free bets accordingly.I have contacted them again to argue my case but they are budging. How’s does everyone read this? Do they make it clear that the £50 is the maximum free bet allowed?
The issue I have is that my free bets need to be used by the end of today. If I use the free bets then I am pretty much accepting that they are correct. If I don’t use them I am them losing the free bets.

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theslosty 0 July 31, 2016 at 2:55 pm

Bad luck Decky – can only hope you didn’t suffer as badly as I. Let me know how you get on with McLean.

Thanks Dave – you are probably right about local/national press but it’s worth a try.

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Walter Mitty 0 July 31, 2016 at 3:14 pm

Try contacting @boycottbetfred on twitter, he might be able to help you.

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Johnbo 14 July 31, 2016 at 8:29 pm

Really horrible to hear that they voided the bet.

At the end of the day, bookmakers are out for profit above all else and it is typical behaviour for them to accept a bet but then void it for winning

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jameslegg97 8 July 31, 2016 at 9:31 pm

Thoughts are with you mate. Hope you don’t take it too hard – whatever’s happened has happened. Definitely pursue the money but write it off in your head now. It’s one of those things and could happen to any of us.

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theslosty 0 August 1, 2016 at 1:27 am

Thanks James, don’t worry I’ve learnt that the hard way. It’s a bad situation but it’s also one I don’t want to make any worse.

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theslosty 0 August 1, 2016 at 1:29 am

In fact thanks to everyone who has posted here to help me out, apart from deckymc none of you have been affected by this scenario and it is genuinely generous of everyone to offer their advice and support.

I’m very grateful for that, cheers

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El chico 1 August 1, 2016 at 12:24 pm

Theslosty

In my experience in life if you accept things and do not fight for something you get nothing. I have had multiple incidents in life, similar to this, where I have decided I will not just write something off and will make an absolute nuisance of myself until I get a result; the majority of times I have got a positive outcome. I was once sold a car by a second hand car company and it had a major fault just after the warranty. At first the guy told me “nope sorry but it was after the period of cover.” I refused to accept that and stated I would make sure I let everyone know about this via the internet etc. Additionally I contacted the car company and stated that this was an unacceptable mileage for such an error to occur and kept phoning and pestering their Head Office. Long story short, I ended up in profit from the payments I got off the dealer and car company. I think you should be pestering Mclean to the absolute max and exhaust every avenue possible on this. Get onto their senior management. They may well be partly in the right but to the average punter this stinks and you need to make them aware you will run down every possible avenue and give them absolute max negative publicity unless they change this offer. Let us know how you get on.

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FoG_BLoG 47 August 1, 2016 at 12:52 pm

I agree with El Chico.

It’s a lot of money to just write off.

I know you have screwed up by placing the bet on a multiple, but they have screwed up too by accepting the bet. I think the bigger responsibility is on their side. I’ve been placing a few free bets this morning and as soon as you add the bet to the slip it offers you the free bet balance to use – up to max 150 (or whatever your balance is).

Also ppl have said the papers wouldn’t be interested because of their links with certain groups. Well I disagree too, I would be interested in reading such stories and at the end of the day they want to sell papers with stories that ppl want to read.

Also I think you are worried about how to explain how you lost money on this without getting into match betting and making it look like you are the one running a little scam. But its not unusual you put a bet on with a free bet, first leg came in, maybe even the second. At this point any regular punter knowing that he is in for some money would want to cash it in rather than wait. Most ppl would lay some of it off on the exchange (guessing there was no cash out option). Look at how many ppl cashed out on Leicester rather than waiting to the end of the season. It is easy to understand that although this was a free bet you have lost out financially without necessarily needing to go into the FULL details of the matched betting.

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FoG_BLoG 47 August 1, 2016 at 12:55 pm

Dave, its hardly a complicated story.

“BetMcLean cheats punter out of £2000”

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theslosty 0 August 1, 2016 at 3:28 pm

Oh no I was never intending to give this money up. I think James was telling me not to chase my losses by gambling – which of course is good advice.

El Chico I intend to fight the decision but I have some really important university exams in 3 weeks and they take priority even over the small matter of £2.5k. Anyway I am about to phone them, will let you know how I get on.

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jameslegg97 8 August 1, 2016 at 6:08 pm

Indeed – as per my post, I definitely wouldn’t say not to chase it. That would be insane! What I’m getting at is more that I know how much of a strain that sort of loss can put on your mind. I’ve had a losses from my perspective that have really played on my mind. Not just that, but yeah, you end up chasing your losses too. Coming to terms with a potential financial loss like that can be difficult, so it’s important to prepare yourself for the worst outcome in those cases.

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Dbb 3 August 1, 2016 at 6:45 pm

Definitely keep at them and i’d go for the media and social media side of it, local press, facebook, twitter etc.

Since the whole betting system is based on trust that the bookie will pay out winners, regardless of the t&c’s, the bet was accepted. The fact they are now reversing the bet and refusing to pay is untrustworthy and i think the more vocal you can be about that the better.

who would bet with a bookie that might not pay out when you win.

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theslosty 0 August 1, 2016 at 6:50 pm

I’m on the same page as you James. I’ve had massive losses before through either my own fault or extreme bad luck and know from experience that I can’t let any loss affect my mindset. Otherwise you can get into serious trouble.

Phoned McLean this afternoon and their employee seemed to understand my situation but apparently wasn’t senior enough to deal with it. However, given the fact they are probably getting lots of calls about situations similar to mine I thought he might have been aware about my story prior to my phone call.

Still awaiting a return call from a member of their senior trading/finance team.

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