On Tuesday, the Alliance of American Football announced that it would suspend its operations, and multiple sportsbooks confirmed to ESPN that they would refund wagers on all title bets.
On Wednesday, the FanDuel Sportsbook took it one step further.
FanDuel made every AAF bettor happy by declaring the 7-1 Orlando Apollos champions and paying out futures bets on them. However, the company decided to also grade all futures bets on the other seven AAF teams as winners, including the Memphis Express and Atlanta Legends — two teams that had been eliminated from playoff contention.
“Because the FanDuel Sportsbook loves football and we believe this is the very definition of a bad beat for sports fans everywhere, we are also going to pay out straight future wagers for all AAF teams as winners,” FanDuel declared in a statement.
“While we’ve declared the Apollos honorary champions, we think the biggest winners should be our customers and hope they enjoy their payouts,” FanDuel Group chief marketing officer Mike Raffensperger said in a statement.
The SuperBook at the Westgate Las Vegas will refund all AAF futures wagers and grade them as no action, since a championship game wasn’t played.
FanDuel told ESPN that paying out all bets as winners will cost the company “just under $10,000.”