Please see email response below detailing our complaint. I was applaud at the response we received. The bet refunds/ winnings are irrelevant to the fact that we paid for a service we did not receive. How does that not warrant a refund? Regardless to who was at fault for the complications on the night, we paid Owlerton Stadium for an 'executive night out' and did not receive one.


I am in receipt of your e-mail regarding the problems experienced on Friday 1st June. May I first of all apologise for any inconvenience and for the fact that the difficulties we experienced with the Tote obviously spoilt your evening.

I would like to inform you of the circumstances that lead to the problems incurred:

1. The problem was caused by both the Tote server and the Tote back-up server failing at the same time. It has never been known for both servers to fail at the same time, particularly as both servers had the same fault.
2. The servers link to a network hub in Bristol, where the Tote operations are controlled for almost all greyhound tracks. The fact that the servers both failed meant that we lost all IT connections with the hub.
3. The problem first occurred after Race 10, but fortunately, the dividends had been declared, which meant that we were able to pay the amounts due to the winners, albeit we were unable to do this via the Tote computers.
4. As we were in telephone contact with the hub at Bristol, and they were working on the problem and were expecting to be able to rectify it within a short period of time, we decided that we would continue with races 11 and 12. However, in both cases, the Tote servers failed to work, with the result that we had to declare the tote results void, and any bets placed were refunded.
5. We managed to get the servers working again for race 13 – this race was completed in the normal manner.
6. Race 14 took place, but unfortunately, the servers again failed. However, this time, the result of the race had been declared by the Judges, which meant that under the rules of the Greyhound Board of Great Britain and the Gambling Commission regulations, we were unable to then declare the race void. This meant that we were not legally permitted to refund any bets which had been placed. In addition, because the servers had failed completely, we were unable to ascertain what the dividend should be, which obviously meant that we were unable to make any payments. I hope this clarifies why no refund was given for race 14 and also why we were unable to declare a dividend and pay out any winning bets (these have since been posted out to any winning customers).

With your request for a partial refund I am afraid that I am unable to offer any refund on the booking as although we were unable to offer any tote betting for races 11&12 and 15&16 I do not feel this warrants a refund.

Once again I would like to apologise for the circumstances but these were totally out of our control and given the circumstances we did everything we could to rectify this situation.