Rich Ricci defends voided stakes at BetBright after punter backlash

Rich Ricci, the former executive chairman of the defunct bookmaker BetBright, said on Wednesday evening that while he can "understand why some customers are upset" about its decision to void all open ante-post bets, it was the "most equitable" way to wind up the business.

The announcement on Tuesday that BetBright intended to refund stake money on all unsettled bets provoked fury among clients who had taken long odds about horses due to run at the Cheltenham Festival next week, or placed long standing bets on the football season when it started in August.

Many punters were also astonished that, having accepted a bet many weeks or even months ago, a bookmaker could unilaterally cancel it when, in many cases, the odds of a payout had improved significantly. One example seen by the Guardian involves a potential payout of around £26,000 (€30,300) for a total stake of £400 (€465) on a bet involving four football teams. Three currently head their division, while the other is a close second.

The decision to close BetBright followed the sale of its technology to the rival firm 888.com in a £15 million (€17.5 million) deal which was concluded on Monday. While 888.com said on Wednesday it would honour BetBright’s outstanding racing bets on Cheltenham next week, there is no sign as yet of any softening of BetBright’s line on ante-post football bets, where potential liabilities are understood to be significantly higher.

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Ricci, a former banker and also a leading owner who will have several fancied runners at Cheltenham next week, said on Wednesday evening that the sale of BetBright to 888.com had been “unusual” and raised several difficult issues.

“It was a very unusual transaction and I can’t remember one like it,” Ricci said. “Only part of the company was sold. There have been situations where a bookmaker has gone bust and that’s dealt with in a certain way and others have been sold in their entirety, but in this case, we sold the tech platform, the engine of the business. They didn’t want the customer book or the other assets and liabilities.

“We’re left with a situation which isn’t ideal, where the company doesn’t have the engine to carry on and trade and needs to be wound up in an orderly way. We talked about it a lot and decided this would be the most equitable thing to do for most people.”

While some BetBright customers have been refunded on bets that would have been losers – on the injured Sizing John to win next week’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, for instance – it seems inevitable that some will miss out on what promised to be five-figure wins unless BetBright reconsiders its decision.

Asked why the firm had not set aside money to cover potential outstanding liabilities before finalising the sale price, Ricci said that the firm had “other creditors that needed to be treated in an equitable way and we needed to find the right balance”.

Ricci said: “I understand why some customers will feel upset but we felt the fairest solution was just to refund money as quickly as we could to let people do what they needed to do with the funds.

“We thought about offering ‘cash-out’ [on bets where the odds had shortened significantly] but it could not be offered on those markets under our T&Cs [terms and conditions]. I’m empathetic with some of the anger but there are other sides to this story and it was an unusual transaction. We dealt with it in a way we thought best.” – Guardian