One of the foundational rules of sports betting is that the ticket stands as written. If a casino sportsbook writes a ticket, no matter how absurd or out-of-sorts it seems, they are are on the hook to honor it. That’s a lesson the ticket-writers at the Bellaggio Las Vegas are learning the hard way after one of the worst past posting errors of all time cost the casino hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The error occurred in the early morning hours on Sunday when most of the world, including the crew at the Bellagio’s sportsbook were not focused on Chinese and Korean baseball. But a few sharp-eyed players noticed that the casino had posted the wrong starting times for several Asian ball games. This allowed them to pull off a sports betting dream, which is to wager on the outcome of an event that’s (pretty much) already happened. That, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is exactly what a sports betting enthusiast who goes by the Twitter handle @AudreyR2d2 did.
The player, along with several others, took advantage of the fact that the Bellagio posted the start time for games as 2:53 a.m., when the games had actually started at 1 a.m. That allowed him to place an eight-leg parlay that paid off to the tune of $11,000 on a $100 wager. Of course, not everybody thinks that kind of play is cool. One unidentified casino executive told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “This was like going to the casino cage and sticking a gun in their faces. There’s no difference. What these guys did was pure theft.”
While human error is the likely culprit behind the sports betting mix-up, plenty of industry insiders acknowledge that international games, and the various time zone changes they represent, can be a challenge for local employees to navigate.
As it stands, the players will likely get to keep their sports betting bonanza, but the entire situation will be reviewed by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.