In the United Kingdom, sports betting and gambling firm Ladbrokes Coral Group has reportedly announced that it is no longer guaranteeing to strictly honour horseracing odds that have been displayed in newspaper advertisements. According to a report from the Racing Post newspaper, bettors could previously have odds printed in a newspaper respected so long as their wager was placed prior to 8:30am on race day.
However, Simon Clare, Public Relations Director for London-based Ladbrokes Coral Group, has now reportedly labelled this practice as ‘commercially nonsensical’ before stating that it also served as a ‘hindrance to providing a modern and professional betting service on horseracing’. “While the advertised price guarantee will no longer apply, we are fully committed to laying decent bets to customers on all the best races on all our betting channels,” Clare reportedly told the newspaper.
The Racing Post reported that Ladbrokes Coral Group is just the latest in a long line of British sports betting operators that have recently changed their policy on honouring odds printed in newspaper advertisements. It explained that this transformation was down to an ever-increasing number of bettors utilizing firms’ online and mobile channels in order to place wagers from any place night or day. “These days more feature races than ever before are being priced up several days before the race and prices are constantly moving from the time they are first published until the race going off,” Clare reportedly told the newspaper. “Given this context, to then guarantee to lay an advert price, that was finalized some 16 hours earlier due to newspaper print deadlines, often means the bookmaker ends up with precisely the opposite position in the market to the one intended.”
The nation’s largest bookmaker with around 4,000 Ladbrokes and Coral-branded betting shops, Ladbrokes Coral Group reportedly explained that it will now only honour printed odds up to a value of £5,000 ($6,577) so long the wager is placed in person at one of its venues after 9am with the race in question broadcast live via ITV. “Due to the challenge of trading volumes of bets in a very short time period, it’s not possible to extend such a guarantee to our digital channels,” Clare reportedly told the Racing Post.
