One of the great things about Twitter is that you can, at any given time, take a cursory glance at the trending hashtags and see what the world is talking about. And on the evening of 26th April, you would have found the likes of Elon Musk trending – understandable since he just bought the platform – alongside Johnny Depp and Angela Rayner, both of whom would, for different reasons, arguably prefer that their names were not being discussed on the internet.
But among these hashtags of celebrities, politicians and the world's richest man, Bet365 was also trending that evening. The problem? The site had crashed. And to make matters worse, it crashed during the spectacular Champions League game between Manchester City and Real Madrid. Punters were very upset about this, and they were quick to vent their anger on Twitter. Most of the posts concerned live betting.
Website outages are common
To be fair to Bet365, this issue could have happened to any online bookmaker. Sites go down – it's a fact we live with on the internet, and it's certainly a phenomenon not limited to betting sites. So, it's not as if Bet365 is a specific culprit. But it begs the question as to whether betting companies are serving their customers sufficiently in this department.It's important to say straight of the bat that, by and large, live betting works well, and there are no issues for the majority of that time. Moreover, it's arguably not appreciated enough just how much of a technical triumph live betting is. The fact that we can follow the action and place bets in real-time is an incredible feat of technology and innovation. It's even more impressive in the fast-paced sports events: Platforms like Neds live betting for horse racing and some of the US sports betting platforms that cover basketball, for example, have mastered the art of covering live betting for sports that can change in the blink of an eye.
However, there is still room for improvement among the major platforms. Punters tend to want one thing – reliability. And that essentially means they want to be able to place a bet when they want, and to cash out the bet at the opportune moment. Now, it's understandable that when a player is about to take a penalty in a football match or a horse is leading a race by a country mile that the markets are suspended, meaning you can't bet or cash out. Punters accept this – they aren't stupid.
Punters are right to ask for reliability
But when it comes to long periods of outages, with no particular reason given for them, players are right to expect a better service. Some might say that bettors must live with their choices. After all, there are inherent risks in placing a bet – gamblers know this. But this sort of take misunderstands how modern betting works. Betting sites market these slick live betting services, telling players they are in control of every moment, and that includes being able to cash out and take their winnings or cut their losses whenever they want. There is, so to speak, a social contract between player and platform.Most of the posts we saw on Twitter about the Bet365 incident – and again, we stress that we aren't singling out Bet365 here – touched upon that fact. Many had cited the fact that they had backed Man City to beat Real Madrid by more than 2 goals and wanted to cash out when City led 2-0, 3-1, and 4-2. The final result, 4-3 City, meant that those bets were deemed losing one for those who could not cash out. Many have been tweeting Bet365 asking for a refund.
As we said, experienced bettors consider this an art. You might even compare it to trading stocks – timing is key. When betting platforms don't provide that reliability, then they are letting down their customers and breaking the contract they made with them.
