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Arkansas cruised to a 70-0 victory in its season opener on Thursday night in a game where they were heavy favorites, but some DraftKings bettors who appeared to cruise to an easy payday got some unfortunate news due to the nature of the blowout win.
Plenty of college football teams opt to kick off their season against a cupcake opponent in the hopes of ironing out the kinks before turning their attention to some stiffer competition, and that’s the route the Arkansas Razorbacks opted to harness when they paid Arkansas-Pine Bluff an unspecified fee to essentially serve as their sacrificial lamb to kick off the 2024 campaign.
The Hogs flipped the proverbial script by leading the Golden Lions to the slaughter as Bobby Petrino’s new offense scored a touchdown on every single drive in a game where Arkansas was up 49-0 by the time the first half wrapped up.
UAPB knew what they signed up for heading into a showdown where the Razorbacks were listed as 50.5-point favorites, and anyone who bet on the home team to cover the spread had to be feeling pretty good about their wager by the time the second quarter came to an end.
However, the two teams agreed to shorten the final two quarters to ten minutes due to the lopsided nature of the contest, and plenty of people who used DraftKings to wager on the game were miffed to discover their bets had been voided due to house rules that state:
“There must be 5 minutes or less of scheduled game time left for bets to have action unless the specific market outcome is already unconditionally determined.”
According to For The Win, DraftKings said “spread bets that were voided due the shortened quarters that would have won based off the final score of 70-0 received cash credits,” so it does appear the sportsbook did what it could to appease people who were impacted by the halftime adjustment.