Bad week for Ladbrokes as punter waits over a year for bet to be paid

A Social Media storm last week culminated in Ladbrokes coughing up €100,000 to stable lad Dylan Phelan on a bet he had placed in one of the bookmaker’s Irish shops over twelve months earlier.

Phelan, who is employed by trainer Declan Queally, went into a Ladbrokes shop on 19 April 2024 and placed a €30 each-way double on two of the stable’s runners that day.

The bet included Rocky's Diamond (80/1) in a maiden hurdle at Limerick and Diamond Nora (125/1) in another maiden hurdle at Ballinrobe the same afternoon. Both horses won.

The incredible wager should have returned Phelan €319,440, however under the rules in place regarding maximum payouts in Ladbrokes shops the winnings had a cap of €100,000. But, in any case, Ladbrokes had refused to settle the bet.

The company stated that due to an ongoing investigation by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) into the performances of the two horses on the day that they were withholding the winnings until those investigations had been completed.

Solicitors acting on Phelan’s behalf issued High Court Proceedings against Ladbrokes Ireland on 11 Feb 2025, but this didn’t budge Ladbrokes’ position.

The bet sat in limbo for a year until Cork journalist Joe Seward highlighted the case just over a week ago when it quickly blew up on Social Media and was then covered extensively by mainstream media.

After a massive groundswell of support for Phelan and intense disapproval of Ladbrokes’ stance on the matter, the bookmaker has finally relented and agreed to pay out on Phelan’s bet, despite the IHRB investigation into the two races still ongoing.

On the surface this is a major victory for the little man in a battle with a corporate giant, but if we delve a little deeper it poses some significant questions about horse racing betting, how the sport is governed and even its future funding.

Whatever way you break this down, Dylan Phelan was not some random punter who hit the jackpot by chance. This is a young man that worked in the yard where both horses were trained and as a consequence was privy to a level of information that wasn’t in the public domain.

Phelan himself has openly admitted that he placed several other bets on the day, combining these two horses, with a range of bookmakers including Bar One Racing, Paddy Power and BoyleSports who all paid out, as well as the disputed Ladbrokes bet.

Aside from the four bets we know Dylan Phelan placed on Rocky’s Diamond and Diamond Nora in shops that day, there was also significant money elsewhere for both horses with Rocky’s Diamond shortening from 100/1 to 22/1 in the minutes before his race at Limerick and Diamond Nora also contracting from odds as high as 150/1 in the morning into an SP of 16/1 at Ballinrobe.

While Ladbrokes’ position to not pay out on the bet for over a year is difficult to rationalise, fellow bookmakers Paddy Power and BoyleSports did also withhold payments for a period, waiting until mandatory drug samples taken by IHRB from the two winning horses had proved negative, and there is of course still an ongoing investigation into the case by the IHRB.

The IHRB investigation will have presumably gathered information from a wide range of bookmakers who struck bets on the two horses in order to gauge the scale of the gamble that took place that day and if their investigation ever sees the light of day we may find out whether or not this was an orchestrated coup.

Either way, no bet should take over a year to be settled or necessitate a public outcry before the bookmaker pays up. What sort of message does this send out about Irish horse racing and the bookmakers that are licensed to take bets on the sport?

Another side to this dispute that is concerning is how each bookmaker can make up their own rules regarding bet limits. In the case of Ladbrokes their rules state that horse racing bets in shops or online have a limit of €1 million on Group races, Graded races, Listed races and Premier handicaps run in Ireland and/or UK, but for other races, such as the maiden hurdles in which Phelan’s two horses ran, the limit is just €100,000.

As a comparison, BoyleSports have a limit of €1 million on Class 1 & 2 UK horse racing, but only €500,000 on Irish Group Races, €250,000 on Irish Premier Handicaps and a similar €100,000 to Ladbrokes on bets placed on maiden races and lower class handicaps run in Ireland.

Ireland’s new gambling regulator should look to standardise these limits for all licensed operators. It would also be a good exercise for Horse Racing Ireland to find out exactly why major operators have lower limits for some Irish races than their UK equivalent races and address their concerns. If bookmakers are fearful of their exposure to certain types of Irish races, what message does this send out to punters betting on those races?

Considering how closely linked betting turnover on Irish racing is to the Media Rights money that funds much of the sport here, there should be a more proactive approach to dealing with both punters’ and bookmakers’ issues, by the governing body and the sport’s regulators.

Changing the subject, it is very positive to see so many British-trained horses coming to Punchestown this week. There are sixteen declared to run on Tuesday alone.

British runners add an important extra element to jump racing here and following on from the recent Welsh success in the Irish Grand National I hope this can act as a catalyst for them to come over more regularly for our big races and festivals.

With the weather set fair it promises to be a fantastic week both on and off the track at Punchestown as the curtain comes down on another extremely enjoyable, if somewhat predictable season.