An ardent bettor’s account with major exchange betting business Betfair was terminated after he used a Zoom-linked “live stream” to watch horse races while putting in-play bets.
Adam Fraser, a former professional golfer, is considering his legal options after alleging that Betfair wrongfully closed the account.
According to the platform’s terms and conditions, the corporation is still within its rights to “suspend or terminate” an account “at any moment, with or without cause.”
Mr. Fraser claimed that he was unfairly penalised for viewing freely accessible content that other customers could also access.
According to him, every Australian citizen can view the “free-to-air” vision that he and other in-play dealers were watching on that particular day, he told the Age.
I was using the Zoom app to see it because my friend had the channel at home and I didn’t.
Mr. Fraser thinks someone else on the Zoom stream with him, which, he claimed, was showing a “free-to-air” channel that would typically be on television anyway, leaked information about him.
He believes that another participant in the video conference screenshotted the other participants and forwarded it to Betfair.
On a betting exchange like Betfair, players compete with one another by setting their own odds and making them available to other bettors.
With in-play exchange betting, a bettor with the fastest stream can reduce the time between the race’s broadcast and its viewing, giving them the upper hand by being a few frames ahead of other bettor’s watching on a separate channel.
In contrast to a television broadcast, which can have a delay of five to seven seconds, Mr. Fraser claimed the stream he was viewing had a latency of about 0.5 to 1 seconds.
Bettors watching on speedier streams can change their in-play wagers more quicker than those watching on slower broadcasts since they can spot horses missing their start or making a mid-track breakaway far sooner.
While there are regulations at racetracks that control the transmission of video from the track, there are no regulations that prevent bettors from using streams to place in-play wagers.
Mr. Fraser disputed that the Zoom feed he was watching was coming from the track.
Are Betfair planning to close every in-play trader’s account who has ever viewed “free-to-air” vision if they don’t reopen my account? said he.
When Daily Mail Australia contacted Betfair to inquire about why it terminated Mr. Fraser’s account, no response was received.
In a statement, Betfair stated that its top priorities were “integrity and fairness.”
‘We don’t offer our consumers racing vision. There are no restrictions on obtaining race footage at Betfair because third companies own, administer, and broadcast races.