David ‘DJ’ Gardiner was counting his lucky stars when he won ￡1,300 ($1,651) on the Snooker World Championship. The 65-year-old staked ￡100 on Kyren Wilson to win the Crucible Crown at odds of +1200, which came in when Wilson beat Jak Jones on May 6.
a worker explained that someone had claimed it half an hour earlier
Gardiner’s joy was short-lived, however. When he visited a Coral retail sportsbook to collect his prize, a worker explained that someone had claimed it half an hour earlier, from more than 100 miles away.
The bettor was filled with regret when he worked out the reason why. He posted a picture of the betting slip on the World Snooker Tour Facebook page. A scammer was then able to take a screengrab of that ticket and cash it in via the barcode in Stoke-on-Trent.
“I was mortified but it’s my own fault,” Gardiner told the Daily Mail. “It was probably just the excitement getting to me knowing he was about to make the final. I posted it when he was on the brink of winning his semi-final.”
Gardiner said he wanted to “warn others out there” about the dangers of posting a betting slip online. “Everyone is posting pictures of their bets on Facebook so people need to be aware this can be done,” he stated.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Entain, which owns Coral, said that it “urges customers to keep their betting slips safe and to not share them with anyone else – either in person or online.”