Normally, players would have had to walk away because the bookie controls the money and used to be offshore. However, this "industry standard" approach could backfire on the industry because this is one of the big horse racing events in the UK, and this is a mass non payment of legitimate bets based on rather vague terms which would probably fall foul of UK consumer protection laws. If that wasn't bad enough, the Mirror has gotten hold of this, and it's tabloid headline news. The PR for the bookie industry is going to be very bad indeed because on the face of it, these are 4 bookies that took a hit because the favourites did rather well, which is not an uncommon occurrence, but normally the big bookies have enough reserves to ride out such a storm, and know that they will recoup the money later on. This is the first time that bookies have first stalled by saying there were delays in making the payments, and then deciding to mass renege on winning bets without there having been anything raised about the results on the course, such as a steward's enquiry of a failed doping test.
There have been previous incidents, but they have been down to allegations of match fixing, and payments on bets have been delayed and only voided once the governing body of the sport involved has cast doubt on the validity of the outcome.
This will reflect badly on ALL bookies, not just these IOM registered ones.
Ideally, these punters should push all the way to taking the firms to court for their winnings, and if the Mirror gets behind them (as it will, because it sells papers to run with a cause for the lowly consumer) they will all realise that this is what they should do.
The downfall of Hoover was helped largely by the newspapers taking on the cause on behalf of customers who got ripped off. The fact that Hoover botched the free flights promo by making it economically viable to buy an appliance and bin it and STILL save money on the flights is what lead to the eventual meltdown. Hoover didn't get saved by the "promotional abuse" argument back then, and the negative PR generated by them trying to renege on the free flights offer dealt a fatal blow to the company as it went bust under the strain of dealing with the aftermath, whilst most customers eventually got their free flights.
Bookies may find that a loss of trust from punters makes this a rather expensive move for the industry, and they will be under considerable pressure to honour valid winning bets unless they can come up with something much better than the vague letter they have sent out. They must have taken a very big hit in order to resort to such a drastic and dangerous measure, so maybe they lost so much to punters that they are in danger of going under and not being able to pay a much wider range of winning bets.
If the Mirror has this, the Mail and Express should also get hold of it, and it may even end up being covered by the more erudite rags, where it will make waves in financial circles, and where the UKGC may have to take the matter more seriously.