A bettor won $215,000 before a sportsbook refused to pay. This case study explains what happened, how house rules shape disputes, and what bettors can do to protect themselves.
Back to VideosYou make a mistake and the sports books win. The sports books make a mistake and the sports books still win. Sound fair? Say you spot a big sports book mistake and bet an easy winner, but the book cries foul and voids it. Should they be allowed to? Today, I'm going to show you a simple two-prong test that should govern when books can void and what you can do if you're in one of those spots.
Here's the problem. Sometimes the sports books are completely within their rights to void a bet. That part sucks, but it's fair and there is not a whole lot that you can do about it. Other times, they actually owe you and bettors are getting screwed because the rules are messy and they vary by state. I'm going to break it down so that you know exactly when a void is legit and when you're being free rolled. Plus, what to do if it happens. Back in 2023, a Virginia school teacher was doing his homework at BetMGM.
The Women's World Cup was in full swing and he spotted three same game parlays on BetMGM in a Netherlands versus Vietnam game. All of them turning on the Dutch to have more corner kicks. There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. What? He put up a total of $3,250 at 66 to 1 and when all three plays hit, he was due to collect almost $215,000. And you can guess what happened next. MGM voided the wages. They said it was an obvious error and the parlays never should have been offered at that high a price.
Even wilder, they said they couldn't even price those SGPs correctly so they weren't going to pay him anything. He'd just get his three grand stake back. Of course, he filed a complaint with the Virginia Gaming Commission and contacted the local news who did a story on it. They said because of their mistake, they could do whatever they wanted to with my account balance. And on top of that, the mistake that they claim happened, they can't even back that up with any evidence. Public opinion, predictably, was split on which side of the counter you were on. Bettors thought that he should get paid. Bookmakers thought MGM shouldn't have to pay on an obvious error.
The problem with the phrase obvious error is obvious to who? And at what point is a sports book responsible for its own errors? It's not like it was back in the days of offshore unregulated betting when the sports book was judge, jury, and executioner. Whatever they ruled was how it was going to be. If you tried to pick off a bad line, they'd void your bet and then they'd close your account.
But regulation at least keeps the domestic books from operating like it's the wild west, at least in most states. Now, personally, I feel as though the Virginia school teacher had a legitimate right to get paid on his wager. But what do you think?
Let's look at another type of bet that I think should be voided. DraftKings Pick Six, their version of peer-to-peer DFS pick'em, left up lines on a few events early in 2026 after the bets were already decided. Some bettors swooped in to hammer those bets and when DraftKings voided the obviously past posted wagers, they even had the nerve to say that those bets should stand because other bettors who did the same thing got paid and were able to withdraw their winnings. Sure. Let's see how that works if you get caught robbing a bank, but you tell the judge that you should be able to keep the money because a few guys in your crew got away.
So, why do I agree that betting after the game is over is obviously bad, but picking off a crazy price isn't? It's not that I have some moral or ethical high ground that I'm standing on. I'm simply applying a very common sense two-prong test.
Right after sports betting was legalized in New Jersey, there was a Broncos game where kicker Brandon McManus lined up for a game-winning 36-yard field goal. FanDuel mistakenly offered the Broncos at 750 to 1 to win the game. It was up long enough for several people to fire into that number. After several days of public debate, FanDuel surprised the betting world by announcing they were going to pay up. It turns out the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement had quietly pressured FanDuel to grade the bets as a win. New Jerseyans, good at persuasion. I'm not going to pay. Oh, yeah? I'm serious. No, serious is what happens if you don't pay.
In doing so, New Jersey had introduced a novel two-prong approach for determining if a wager should stand or be voided. First, was the wager a legal wager? In other words, is this something that is allowed to be bet on at the regulated sports book? Second, did the wager have risk? The Broncos field goal fit both criteria. An in-game NFL bet is a legal wager and the bet carried risk. McManus could have missed and the Broncos would have lost. This is the test that should decide whether a bet gets voided or not, but no one else has followed Jersey's lead. In some states, a sports book has full control to void any bet they deem an error.
You can guess how that goes for bettors. In another case, multiple bettors caught FanDuel napping on alternate spreads in soccer. Bettors hit FanDuel in New Jersey and in Indiana. Most of the bets won and then FanDuel tried to void them. In Indiana, the Gaming Commission ruled that if FanDuel said it was a void, then the bet was a void. But in New Jersey, regulators applied the two-prong test and guess what? It was a legal bet that still carried risk. The void was overruled.
Now, fortunately, FanDuel did the right thing and paid out in Indiana as well. Sometimes a little goodwill and good PR is worth paying out a few wagers. Sometimes though, the money is worth the fight for them.
And that's what takes us to the 2024 Pebble Beach Pro-Am where the weather forecast looked grim. After three days of play, the weather was menacing and organizers knew that there was a good chance they were going to have to shorten the tournament to 54 holes and cancel Sunday's play. After round three ended on Saturday, a few savvy bettors parlayed the exact order of finish in the tournament banking on round four getting washed out. One better was going to win 14.2 million on DraftKings on the exact order of finish in the tournament if they hadn't voided the bet when Sunday's play ended up getting called off.
When the tournament was shortened to just three days, the sports books voided the wagers on the 72-hole tournament outcome. Were they right to do it? Well, it passes one prong. If they kept playing on Sunday, there was risk that the exact order of finish almost certainly would have changed. But it wasn't a valid bet. The wagers were on a 72-hole tournament, but only 54 holes were played. The two-prong test sides with DraftKings. Though that better didn't see it this way. He's currently suing DraftKings for the 14.2 million and the case is still in federal court. Look, I get it. The temptation to bet into these scenarios on the chance that you might actually get paid is pretty hard to resist.
Make no mistake though, sports books hate this sort of behavior. If you value your account, it's better not to shoot your shot. Now, what about our Virginia teacher and his $215,000 payday? Well, that one does pass the two-prong test. Those soccer SGPs were valid wagers that carried risk. The Dutch women could have missed out on those corner kicks. Maybe it wasn't as unlikely as 66 to 1. Some sharps made the play around 4 to 1, but it still had risk. And BetMGM admitted in their initial response that they didn't know what the bets should have been priced at. It was a major flaw in their legal argument.
If they didn't know, then how could they say that 66 to 1 was an egregious mistake? MGM volunteered to make the better whole and one Virginia school teacher had a very good summer vacation.
If you find yourself in one of these spots, your first step is to file a complaint with the state regulators. If that doesn't get you anywhere, you may need to talk to a lawyer. Even if the two-prong test isn't applied in your state, it's worth thinking through on your own. If you see an outlier number, before you shoot your shot, at least make sure that you're in a state that has a track record of being fair in how they arbitrate these situations. Oh, and be careful about trying to bully operators into paying up on social media. Amateur sleuths are pretty good at sniffing out the real story.
