All the biggest British bookmakers has been taking bets on the vote for Scottish independence and while nothing has been settled yet in regards to whether or not they will be independent, Betfair has chosen to pay out all their players who placed a bet on Scotland to not be independent.
Betfair has studied the data available and has decided to pay out all their players prior to the official results, believing that Scotland will stick together with the UK and not go independent. The betting exchange told the press that they are paying out a six-figure sum to their players.
Bookmakers has been doing similar things in the past, paying out early winners when it seemed that it couldn’t go wrong – which in some cases it did and ended up costing a lot of money. The publicity that the bookmakers gets for doing it however is worth all the money that they potentially lose on doing it.