Punters left red-faced

Show me the money!

LADBROKES punters were left red-faced after the gambling website went into meltdown…on the busiest betting day of the year. The “technical error” meant that Ladbrokes were unable to pay out winning Grand National bets.

The firm boasts they provide “interactive betting services 24 hours a day seven days a week”.

Spokesman David Williams denied that there were delays with all of the bets placed online.

He said: “Not all the payments were delayed. There may have been isolated instances among the millions of bets.

“Only a very small proportion of our customers were affected, less than one per cent. We pride ourselves on providing a market-leading customer ­experience and apologise to those affected.

“Along with several of our competitors we experienced some technical problems on Grand National day due to the very high volume of traffic.”

A Ladbrokes account holder, said: “I placed a winning bet on Saturday and I had it settled 24-and-a-half hours after the event.

“Normally, bets are settled in a minute or two, even on the big days. Many clients need their return to continue betting, so the knock-on effect would have been huge.”

But a full day after the National, Ladbrokes – who say they have 85,000 online customers – said sorry to those who had problems.

The dailyrecord.co.uk reported that other bookies’ websites ­struggled to cope with “unprecedented demand”, which saw £200million placed on the Aintree race won by Daryl Jacob on Neptune Collonges.

Paddy Power also had problems. Spokesman Darren Haines said: “It was the equivalent of 2000 people trying to get into a betting shop at the same time.”

Another bookie hit by gremlins, Betfair, said: “We had some ­difficulties with payments and ­withdrawals as the volume was significantly up on last year.”