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Singapore Pools suspends sports betting for 1-1/2 hours
By Chia Han Keong
SINGAPORE World Cup football punters were left puzzled yesterday morning, when Singapore Pools stopped accepting bets or issuing winnings for about 1½ hours.
Upon resumption of normal operations, Singapore Pools chalked the suspension down to a "technical glitch" in its sportsbetting system.
Nevertheless, the stoppage generated much coffeeshop talk among Singaporeans, particularly as it occurred amid the World Cup Finals, the most widely watched global sports event.
On the online citizen-journalism website Stomp, user Munich Koh wrote: "The sales lady at the Singapore Pools outlet said they were not accepting bets or issuing winnings, islandwide issue. Called the Pools helpline, it also said it was a technical error.
"Their systems are very robust, based on my knowledge." A spokesman for Singapore Pools wrote in an e-mail reply to my paper's queries: "Our sportsbetting system was down this morning. However, we have resumed normal operations, including processing prize claims, at 11.30am.
"There was no technical glitch during (Tuesday's) 2.30am World Cup match." The spokesman assured punters that all winnings are unaffected and betters can go collect their winnings.
Some punters were speculating that the suspension was perhaps for Singapore Pools to investigate the odds that it had set on recent matches.
Said one regular punter, who declined to be named: "Maybe Singapore Pools had to pay out unusual sums of money recently, and wanted to check on any human errors made in setting wrong odds for such payouts."