Sports betting sites accused of 'creating outages' to avoid paying winning players

© Unsplash/Ahmet Kurt

It was without a doubt the sporting event of the week. With 18 Champions League matches at the same time, football lovers had something to enjoy. For punters too, this evening of Wednesday, January 29 was an opportunity to win big.

By betting on the right results for each of the 18 matches, punters could hope for thousands of euros in winnings. But online sports betting sites were not their allies. Because even before 9 p.m. and the simultaneous kick-off of all the matches, some sites were already out of service. The situation only got worse, and in the evening many users were unable to “cash out” and collect hundreds or even thousands of euros in some cases.

The “cash out” : a very special feature

Since the arrival of online betting, a new feature has been available to players. It is possible to “cash out” your stake. To understand this option, let's take a simple example. Let's imagine that I bet 5 euros on Paris Saint Germain winning. If I win my bet, I pocket 10 euros.

I then put myself in front of the match and, by chance, Paris opens the score. I can then “cash out” and collect part of my winnings before the end of the match. For example, if Paris leads 1-0 a few minutes from the end, I could pocket 8 euros, instead of the 10 initially planned. A way to ensure your winnings at some point.

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Vexed users

This “cash out” feature is increasingly used by punters, but betting sites are not required to offer it. In certain situations (if the result is too obvious for example) it is impossible for players to withdraw their winnings in advance. In very uncertain matches, the feature can be blocked.

But that is not what happened this Wednesday evening. According to several Internet users, online betting applications, including Unibet and Winamax in particular, experienced loading problems throughout the evening.

Several people who wanted to use the cash out option during the matches were therefore unable to pocket their winnings. Instead, online betting sites said they were “unavailable” due to a “technical breakdown”. Both Unibet and Winamax apologized to users who might be inconvenienced by the situation.

A very practical breakdown for betting sites

The announcement of this outage, which is not a first for online betting sites, greatly annoyed users. They felt betrayed. Already a casual player loses in 90% of cases, now when he manages to win the jackpot, the sports betting site is out of service.

A situation that seems to be happening a little too often, for some users' tastes.

While sports betting sites have denied any intentionality in the outage, suspicions remain among a number of users. It should be noted, however, that there is currently no evidence to suggest that the computer outages suffered by online betting sites are intentional.

With a large number of Champions League matches scheduled, sports betting sites saw their infrastructure put to the test this Wednesday evening. It is entirely possible that servers could not support a sudden influx of users.

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