Tennis rules: Pinnacle versus Olympic

[Justin7]

In the middle of a tennis match, it is moved indoors. Most books have rules to cancel wagers if there is a change in playing surface.

From Pinnacle:
Change of Venue or Playing Surface:

If the venue or playing surface for a match is changed either before or during, the wagering odds for match bets will be adjusted. Match, First Set, Sets Betting and other proposition bets placed at the pre-adjustment odds are void. Futures or Ante post wagers will stand.

From Olympic:
In the event of a change in playing surface, bets will be void, and money refunded.

Pinnacle's rules are crystal clear. What about Olympic's? If your wager lost, but there was a change in playing surface, would you expect your wager to be canceled?

[dwaechte]

Of course.

[jtuck]

Yeah. Might there be a dispute about this?

[Santo]

The problem with the match you're referring to I suspect is that the surface was the same type both indoors and out, so whilst there was a change of venue, it's arguable whether there was a change of surface...

[HeeeHAWWWW]

Urrrgh. Assuming we're talking outdoor hard to indoor hard, probably no void. Most books take this as within the same "class" of surface.

The problem here is with the (outdated) spirit of the rule: that there are clay courts (slow), hard(midspeed), and grass(fast), and moving from one to another totally changes the relative strengths of the player. However those old distinctions make no sense now, with a much greater variety of surface types, a lot of grass courts slowed right down, and half the "hard courts" out there being borderline synthetics. For example, altitude clay courts (eg Bogota and particularly Gstaad) are almost as fast as the slower grass surfaces like modern Wimbledon, and hard courts are all over the place - from slowish/medium like Indian Wells, to pretty quick (US Open). Indoor hard courts can be anything from trampoline bouncy to greased lightning.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is moving from outdoors to inside could justify a "playing surface change", but that's very arguable. Some tennis complexes have the same surface indoors as outdoors, but many don't - in a lot of climates weather means the outdoors simply has to be completely different. Also, some surfaces are simply not replicable in both - eg if you have one of the quicker Greenset surfaces (Rotterdam, Madrid etc) indoors, there isn't any outdoors surface available nowadays that can match it in speed.

There will be more problems with the next generation of surfaces, which really blur the boundary between hard and synthetic.

[daggerkobe]

I may dispute it because different "surface" could mean hardcourt to grass for example, right?

[jtuck]

From Olympic:
In the event of a change in playing surface, bets will be void, and money refunded.

Pinnacle's rules are crystal clear. What about Olympic's? If your wager lost, but there was a change in playing surface, would you expect your wager to be canceled?

That right there seems like it would make things on this issue clear.

[HeeeHAWWWW]

I may dispute it because different "surface" could mean hardcourt to grass for example, right?

Yes, that would be an indisputable void. Pretty rare situation though - I can only thing of Nottingham offhand that uses indoor hard as backup to outdoor grass. Can't imagine anyone using indoor hard as backup to clay, that would just be plain daft in the same tournament. Outdoor hard to indoor carpet is another possible.