Online punters were left with long waits for payouts, and some could not place bets due to untimely Tabcorp outages during the peak of Saturday racing.

TAB outage
TAB account holders were affected by a Tabcorp technical issue during the peak of Saturday's racing action. (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)

Social media lit up last Saturday with complaints from punters that their online TAB accounts were not being updated with payouts, while others could not get bets on.

Messages first appeared on the TAB app around 1:30pm on Saturday saying parimutuel betting was intermittently unavailable for NSW customers due to a technical issue.

Two hours later, messages appeared on the app that betting and account functionality were temporarily unavailable due to a technical issue for customers betting through Victoria and the ACT.

The Straight has examined the TAB’s parimutuel pools in Victoria on the major Melbourne meeting during the outage and determined they were substantially lower over the final four races compared to the previous week.

The win pool total in Victoria on the final four races at Moonee Valley was $418,000, 46 per cent less than what it was over the final four races at Caulfield ($780,860) the previous week.

Errors on Tab.com.au on Saturday. (Photo: Supplied)

A Tabcorp spokesman confirmed online customers were impacted by technical issues on Saturday afternoon.

“Those issues have since been rectified. The company apologised to customers who were impacted,” the spokesman said.

The outage is particularly untimely as racing builds towards its spring peak across Australia.

It is also not ideal timing for Tabcorp, which recently confirmed a $1.36 billion loss, led by an impairment in its NSW and South Australian businesses.

Since that announcement, Tabcorp’s share price has fallen significantly from 56 cents to 38 cents.

New chief executive Gillon McLachlan confirmed Tabcorp would abandon its TAB25 strategy, with a revised plan to be put forward designed to re-energise the fortunes of the wagering giant.

Tabcorp was previously fined $1 million over an outage in November 2020 which significantly impacted the last day of the Melbourne Cup carnival.

‘We require change’ - McLachlan sets Tabcorp on new strategy as downturn continues to bite
Chief executive Gillon McLachlan has vowed to implement a new strategy for Tabcorp amid a $1.36 billion loss during the 2023-24 financial year.
The StraightWarwick Barr
WageringNews