Nevada gambler expected $40K on winning bet, but received $1K. Now he’s appealing

A Las Vegas gambling patron who made a longshot bet on a golfer in the 2023 Australian Open is trying to convince regulators that he should be paid his $40,200 winnings after the sportsbook accepted his bet, but said it made an error when posting odds.

The gambler said he placed a $200 bet at 20,000:1 odds on Nov. 22 for Spanish golfer Joel Moscatel Nachshon to win the first round of the 2023 Fortinet Australian PGA Championship at the Royal Queensland Golf Club in Australia.

Moscatel, currently 281st in world golf rankings, finished the tournament in seventh place with an 11-under-par score, but was first after the first round, tying the course record by shooting a 63.

The win earned the gambler $40,200, according to bet sheets he kept from his digital account with William Hill Sportsbook.

Winnings dropped to $1,000

When the player requested his winnings, he was told there was an error in the posting of odds and substituted his winning ticket with a ticket reflecting corrected odds of 400:1 that provided winnings of $1,000 to the player.

The gambler requested a patron dispute hearing with the Nevada Gaming Control Board and a hearing officer heard both sides on Thursday. The hearing officer’s recommendation will be made to the Control Board and, ultimately, the Nevada Gaming Commission at an as yet undetermined date.

William Hill’s attorney, Adam Hosmer-Henner of the McDonald Carano law firm, deferred comment to Caesars Entertainment Inc., parent company to William Hill. Representatives of William Hill and Caesars did not respond to requests for comment.

In William Hill’s response to regulators, the company said it would not cancel the initial wager because of the “obvious errors” in the setting of the odds and that William Hill’s house rules enable it to make those changes in the event of a mistake.

In its terms for correcting errors, William Hill posts a notice that says, “We reserve the right, pending regulatory approval, to correct any obvious error made on a wager placed in one of our betting Live markets and settle at the correct odds or terms, which were available with William Hill Sportsbook (absent the obvious error) at the time the wager was struck. … Where the incorrect odds or terms are less advantageous than those available with William Hill Sportsbook, the odds or terms will be amended to the correct odds or terms available.”

The gambler said his winning $40,200 ticket was in his gambling portfolio for five days before William Hill switched the ticket without notification to the lower payout. The gambler said at least one other bettor had a similar action taken on the Australian Open bet.

September 2022 action

William Hill was disciplined in September 2022 for not correcting a flaw in its CBS Race and Sports Book mobile wagering system, which produced thousands of duplicate wagers on some sports bets.

The Gaming Control Board filed a complaint against William Hill and the company was fined $100,000 for failing to respond to customer complaints in a timely manner in a series of duplicate bets placed in October and November 2021.

Hosmer-Henner said the gambler’s complaint against William Hill was different from the 2022 disciplinary action because it involved an error in setting the odds and not a technological malfunction that affected hundreds of bets. But the gambler said he was alerted to William Hill complaints after reading the Review-Journal’s story about the complaint and settlement.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.