Bet365 Fined Again in New Jersey, This Time for Taking Bets on Completed Events

• Gambling News
• 07 September 2024

New Jersey has penalized Bet365 once more for breaking the laws pertaining to sports betting.

based in England In New Jersey, bet365 offers online sports betting and iGaming thanks to a collaboration with the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) penalized bet365 with a $33,000 payment in a newly made public regulatory proceeding.

The online sportsbook accepted wagers on a mixed martial arts (MMA) match that had been held a week prior, according to the state's gambling administrator. The match's replay was inadvertently added to Bet365's oddsbook. It was also alleged that the sportsbook took bets on other out-of-law athletic events.

Verified Settlement

Since veteran agency director David Rebuck departed in March after overseeing gaming regulations for over 13 years, DGE Interim Director Mary Jo Flaherty has filled the position. She stated that the MMA match and the mentioned banned wagering events took place between February 3, 2022, and January 23, 2023. Flaherty stated that the DGE consented to resolve the issues after witnessing bet365 implement "remedial action."

"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 DGE's Revenue Unit will receive the bet365 penalty. The sanction was imposed just a few weeks after bet365 was mandated to reimburse bettors for more than half a million dollars following the conclusion of a DGE investigation that revealed the sportsbook had manipulated odds to benefit the book after taking roughly 200 bets.

The DGE discovered that after receiving bets that decreased the payout amounts of 199 successful wagers, bet365 changed the odds for online digital bets on 13 events. Restitution to affected bettors was $519,323.32, which is the entire amount they would have earned had bet365 not illegally changed the odds on their tickets.

According to Bet365, the original odds were provided in error. According to the DGE, a sportsbook can only modify a facilitated wager with its consent.

“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.

Maintaining Trust Above All

Sports betting has become legal in almost 40 states this year, but it has come under fire this year for allegedly punishing winners too frequently and taking advantage of losers.

One of the more proactive regulatory bodies in the United States, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, is still looking into how its online sportsbooks determine whether to limit their clientele. Although sportsbooks have been reluctant to divulge their trade secrets, next month's Q&A session with licensees is scheduled.

This week, DraftKings was found to be operating an online slot machine with a zero percent payout rate, which raised questions about the authenticity of online casino games in Connecticut. The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection intervened and ordered the iGaming platform to reimburse over $24,000 in wagers on the game in question after informing irate gamblers that they were just experiencing a run of bad luck.

Later, DraftKings discovered that the interactive slot was unwinnable due to a technical fault.