Three Sportsbooks Fined in Massachusetts for Accepting Bets on Local University Teams
Gaming regulators in Massachusetts have recently fined three sportsbooks for allowing bets on games featuring in-state collegiate teams, which is not allowed under state law unless they are participating in a tournament like March Madness.
MGM Springfield, Plainridge Park Casino, and Encore Boston Harbor were the recipients of these fines, as announced by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.
MGM Springfield Faces $20K Fines
MGM Springfield received a $20K fine for permitting bets on two Harvard men's basketball games against Yale and Brown that took place on February 3-4. Betting was open for 21 and 20 hours respectively, with a total of 28 tickets being sold from betting kiosks. Four tickets resulted in wins, two at the sportsbook counter and two at a kiosk, according to the gaming commission.
BetMGM, their sportsbook provider at the time, had mistakenly categorized Harvard as being in Connecticut. This resulted in the unauthorized bets. In response, MGM implemented a daily audit of potential offerings before the sportsbook opened for the day. They also instructed BetMGM to periodically review their internal guidance documentation, verifying newly added information and conducting a quarterly audit to confirm its accuracy.
$20K Fine for Plainridge Park Casino
Plainridge Park Casino was also penalized with a $20K fine. It accepted 33 wagers across 27 tickets on a February 2 men’s basketball game between Merrimack College and Long Island University. Betting was open for approximately seven hours, during which a casino employee discovered the error when a patron tried cashing a winning ticket.
The offer of this game was due to a "backend data entry error" where Merrimack College was wrongly designated as being based in Florida. “Kambi, PPC’s sports wagering vendor, has addressed the issue and corrected Merrimack College’s location to Massachusetts,” the commission stated. The vendor promised there were no other games involving Massachusetts colleges being offered at the time, and that no suspicious betting activity was identified in a review of the wagers placed.
Encore Boston Harbor Faced a Fine of $10K
Encore Boston Harbor was docked $10K for accepting one bet on a February 2 women's basketball game between Boston College and Notre Dame. Betting on this game was allowed for five hours, with a single moneyline bet being included in a five-team parlay. The bet was voided before any winnings could be distributed.
The unauthorized wager arose from a "system error" where the team was known by two names and only one of these names was listed on their platform's blacklist of banned teams for wagering. Now, Encore's vendor, WynnBET, is conducting twice-a-day audits to prevent betting on Massachusetts college teams.
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Source: www.casino.org
