The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has fined BetMGM $25,000 for accepting prohibited wagers on New Jersey college basketball games.
When sports betting in New Jersey was legalized, provisions were made in the state’s legal code to prohibit gambling on sporting events involving New Jersey college teams or athletes. This is strictly prohibited even if the wager in question is on the opposing team or athlete.
This type of wagering ban on in-state college sports is common throughout many US states with legal sports betting markets such as New York, South Dakota, and Washington.
According to documents released by the Division of Gaming Enforcement, the fine was issued following an instance where BetMGM accepted wagers on a tournament game and a Rutgers University game.
Two wagers were accepted on March 10th, 2021 on a game between Niagara University and Marist College in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The game in question was played in Atlantic City the following day. The error was blamed on the sportsbook’s tech partner Entain as it had failed to flag the wager as a prohibited bet.
The division’s investigation found that the Entain’s trading operations division had failed to spot the mistake. This was despite the fact that it was required to manually verify the location of the game. The division also found that an automated venue checking system which should have been used by both companies was not in use at the time due to a malfunction. However, the error was noticed by an employee 40 minutes after the bets were placed. They were voided and stakes refunded to the gamblers.
Then, 10 days later, the company offered a pre-made a parlay wager that included a Rutgers University game as part of the bet. According to BetMGM, this pre-made offer was created by an employee in Australia who had failed to realize that Rutgers University was located in New Jersey. The parlay offer was available for eight hours before the error was noticed. During that time only two people has taken advantage of the offer for stakes totaling $30.
As a result of both errors, the total amount accepted in prohibited wagers amounted to just $100.
An experienced iGaming commentator and analyst based in New York City - Jenny reports on regulation and gambling industry news and events.