Hi, I wasn't sure which sub forum this should go to exactly, so if it's not correct then mods feel free to move the post.

I am writing this post as I am not sure what else to do.

I put a bet at Pokerstars for the outright winner just as the knockout stage started for the World Cup (Round of 16 teams) (on 03/12). The odds at the time for final winner were offered with 1/2 odds for the runner up (it was printed under the title "outright winner" in Italic style). The bet I placed was 50$ on France @6.00.

So obviously I was pretty happy when France reached the final as I was supposed to be guaranteed 150$ on my bet as a return at least. (At least that's what I was expecting). Even before the match the bet offered a cash out for roughly the same amount (142$-ish for w/e reason), which I found kind of stupid, because why on Earth would anyone cash out a bet that has at least that amount guaranteed anyway, and is basically freerolling for 150$ more.

Well turns out, Pokerstars kind of "forgotten" how they offered the outright betting at the time of round of 16, and since they didn't put the small italic print (the 1/2 for runner up part) on the ticket of the bet, they just wrote it off as a lost bet with 0$ return.

This is the ticket:


So being kind of confused I contacted support, and had a lengthy conversation with multiple operators (only one provided information), and turns out that if I can't provide them evidence that they offered the bet with 1/2 odds for runners up (in form of a screenshot, because it turns out you are supposed to expect to get scammed like this at Stars, so you obviously should take screenshots of their odds sections before making bets), then they won't be able to do anything about it.

I friendly reminded them, that surely the ToS of their sport site doesn't include anything about players required to taking screenshots of their bets, as Pokerstars, a multi-billion company surely has the resources to know what bets they offer. Also they offered insurance for the round after the 16 or in other words at the Quarter-finals, but only at a 1/3 odds (once again printed in italic style under the "outright winner" title), and only from the Semi-finals onwards did they offer straight outright bets with 0 insurance.

I am only 27 years old, I don't drink and I am not senile either. I am surely not making up this, and I am wondering if anyone of you had bet at either at the round of 16 of at the round of 8 for the outright winner to back up my claim. Sadly I don't really know what else to do, I might just make a twitter acc as well, and try it on their page to get any feedback on this.

I told them as well, I am a loser on betting, I am doing it for fun only, so I don't really care about having losing bets. The bet placed was a small amount anyway, so I can shrug it off any time. But I don't like to be scammed, especially by a company that is worth billions of dollars. I have been a customer at Pokerstars for almost 10 years now, and I never really had issues with either their pokersite or their betting service up until this point. But this is a huge red flag for me, and I am seriously considering to just cash out from them and just move my business elsewhere.

Our conversations, marked them with numbers for easier reading. (Sorry for the mistakes, but I am somewhat tired, and also somewhat frustrated at the moment, so not my best conversation grammar-wise).:

Its half odds if you bet each way. You didn't bet each way you bet outright so the bet lost.

You bet $50 outright at 6.0, so to win only, as shown on the betting slip.

To get 1/2 the odds should France be runners up, at 3.0, you have to bet $50 Each Way (sometimes expressed at EW), so your total bet would be $100, $50 on the win part at 6.0 and $50 at 3.0 on the runners up part.

You clearly didn't do that on the betting slip.

There is a chance that they ambiguously described this on their web site, however, even if they had and you had a screenshot of it, they would still claim that it was a palpable error, because the odds of 6.0 that they were giving were at or close to what the rest of the market were offering/quoting at, so there is no way that they would offer a bet of the same size for free on France being runners up, unless it was explicitly stated as a special promotion.

Palpable error definition:

A bookmaker can cancel (void) your bet, claiming it was a palpable error (or a “palp”). This can occur when a bookmaker has made what they call “an obvious mistake”, such as reversed the odds of a match or some other kind of accidental error made while quoting the odds.

Love it when people mess something up and make a post and use "scam" in the title.

And this proves 100% you bet on the winner. They don't offer cashouts to eachway bets.

Sounds like this has been settled. I'll adjust the title and close the thread.

Please PM me if there's something to add.