Posted on: September 7, 2024, 02:50h.
Last updated on: September 6, 2024, 03:53h.
Bet365 has been fined again in New Jersey for violating the state’s sports betting regulations.
England-based bet365 operates iGaming and online sports betting across New Jersey through its partnership with the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City. In recently disclosed regulatory action, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) punished bet365 with a $33,000 settlement.
The state’s gaming administrator said the online sportsbook took bets on a mixed martial arts (MMA) match that had been contested a week earlier. Bet365 oddsmakers accidentally listed the replay of the match on their book. The sportsbook was also accused of accepting wagers on other prohibited sporting events.
Settlement Ratified
DGE Interim Director Mary Jo Flaherty, who has served in the role since the agency’s longtime Director David Rebuck retired in March after leading the gaming regulatory for nearly 13 years, said the MMA match and cited prohibited wagering events occurred between Feb. 3, 2022, through Jan. 23, 2023. Flaherty said that after seeing bet365 take “remedial action,” the DGE agreed to settle the shortcomings.
Having considered the Stipulation of Settlement which the parties executed and finding sufficient legal and factual support for the recommended penalty therein, I hearby order that the settlement be adopted and that a civil penalty in the amount of $33,000.00 be imposed upon bet365,” Flaherty wrote in her order.
The bet365 penalty will be deposited to the DGE’s Revenue Unit. The fine comes just weeks after bet365 was ordered to pay over a half-million dollars back to bettors after a DGE probe concluded that the sportsbook amended odds in the book’s favor after accepting nearly 200 wagers.
The DGE found that bet365 altered odds for online digital bets on 13 events after the fact of accepting bets that reduced how much 199 winning wagers paid. Impacted bettors were given restitution of $519,323.32, the full amount that they would have won should bet365 not have unlawfully altered their tickets’ odds.
Bet365 argued that the initial odds were offered in error. The DGE said a sportsbook can only amend a facilitated wager with its approval.
“The failure of bet365’s internal software coupled with its manual trading errors caused its system to be unable to ensure the accuracy of its data feeds. These failures are both problematic as to bet365’s business ability to conduct online gaming and the integrity and reliability of its operational systems, and therefore unacceptable as they resulted in misleading wagering information that was relied upon by its patrons and ultimately led to incorrect payouts for numerous patrons,” the DGE wrote.
Ensuring Trust Paramount
As sports betting has spread to nearly 40 jurisdictions in the U.S., the industry has faced criticism this year for supposedly limiting bettors who win too often and preying on those who don’t.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission, perhaps the most pro-active regulatory in the U.S., continues to investigate how its online sportsbooks decide when to limit customers. Sportsbooks have been hesitant to reveal their trade secrets, but a planned Q&A with licensees is slated for next month.
The legitimacy of online casino games came under fire this week in Connecticut after DraftKings was discovered to be running an online slot that had a payout rate of 0%. After telling angry gamblers that they were simply having a run of bad luck, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection intervened and ordered the iGaming platform to pay back nearly $24K in bets on the game in question.
DraftKings later realized a programming error that made the interactive slot unwinnable.