Betting News – Page 13

October 2, 2024

More BetMGM betting violations revealed in Massachusetts

An external audit commissioned by BetMGM in Massachusetts revealed multiple potential violations of state wagering regulations. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) decided on Wednesday (2 October) to handle the newly found violations and two existing ones in a single adjudicatory hearing.
After BetMGM allowed banned prop bets on college football games and professional soccer matches, the operator hired Gaming Laboratories International (GLI) to audit its books. That company found additional potential “non-compliant” bets, including:

Forty-one more college-player props on college football;
Thirteen college-player props on college basketball;
Twelve college-player props on two women’s Elite Eight college basketball games on 1 April 2024; and
One hundred-and-six bets placed between 8 June 2024 and 17 June 2024 on Glory Kickboxing events.

College-player prop bets are prohibited in Massachusetts. And Glory Kickboxing is not an approved betting market. MGC staff revealed the add..

October 2, 2024

Jaguars’ ex-employee sues FanDuel, others in hopes of reversal of fortune

A former NFL Jacksonville Jaguars employee who embezzled $22m to bet on sports is now suing FanDuel, his platform of choice, for $250m (£188.4m/ €226.4m). Amit Patel claims the company took advantage of his blooming addiction.
Patel, who is serving a six-and-a-half-year term at the Williamsburg Federal Correctional Institute Satellite Camp in South Carolina, filed his lawsuit against Boyd Gaming, FanDuel, Flutter and Fox Corp in federal court in New York on Tuesday (1 October).

He contends that not only did FanDuel employees know he was an NFL employee and should be excluded from betting, but also that the company ignored its own internal controls. Sports betting companies have internal controls and house rules that should guide them in dealing with bettors who may display signs of problem gambling.

In the lawsuit, Patel’s lawyer argues that “defendants knew and/or took intentional steps to avoid knowing that the money gambled by the plaintiff was stolen or otherwise not from a leg..

October 2, 2024

US August revenue round-up: Sports betting in Virginia, Colorado and Rhode Island

Rounding up some of the latest monthly sports betting results in the US, iGB take a closer look at how the markets in Virginia, Colorado and Rhode Island performed during August.
Virginia handle rockets 30.6% in August
Starting in Virginia, monthly handle in Old Dominion hit $416.7m (£313.8m/€376.6m). This is 30.6% more than August last year and 10.4% ahead of July of this year.

Figures from the Virginia Lottery show players spent $414.8m betting online and $1.9m at retail sportsbooks inside casino.

Players won $376.5m, while the Lottery accounted for $6,057 in promotions and bonuses and $5.2m in other deductions. As such, adjusted gross revenue for August amounted to $35.0m, up 24.1% year-on-year but 10.7% lower than July.

Online betting accounted for $34.6m of total revenue in August, with the other $415,139 coming from retail sportsbooks. Overall operator hold percentage for the month stood at 9.63%.

The Virginia Lottery does not publish a breakdown of individual operators. Howe..

October 2, 2024

Sweden channelisation rate at 86% according to Spelinspektionen report

Sweden gambling regulator Spelinspektionen has placed the country’s online channelisation rate at 86%; higher than operator estimates and some way above the previous year’s figure.
Detailed in a new report, the Sweden channelisation rate applies to the online gambling market in 2023.

The latest rate surpasses the 77% Spelinspektionen reported for 2022. It is also above forecasts from several operators local including Aktiebolaget Trav och Galopp, which in March estimated a rate of between 69% and 82%.

Unlicensed turnover hits SEK2.5bn
The regulator estimates black market sites generated SEK2.5bn (£183.5m/€220.2m/$243.3m) in turnover in 2023, compared to SEK17.3bn for licensed operators.

However, estimates are based on the assumption that players are wagering the same amount per visit across both unlicensed and licensed operators, which the regulator itself said may not be the case.

The regulator used several methods to come up with the channelisation rate, with 86% representing t..

October 1, 2024

Pete Rose bet on his own team. But he also embodied baseball for generations. That’s worth remembering

Baseball legend Pete Rose died on Monday (30 September). But you already know that. And if you're like me and grew up watching Rose play, you're left with a host of complicated feelings.
Since that fateful day 35 years ago, when Pete Rose accepted a spot on baseball’s “permanently ineligible” list, his legacy has been fraught. Unquestionably one of the best ballplayers who ever lived, Rose broke sports’ cardinal rule. He bet on baseball and, not only that, on his own team.

Rose died in his home on Monday of causes yet unknown, a spokesperson for the Clark County office of the coroner/medical examiner in Nevada told CNN. He was 83.

On 23 August 1989, then-Major League Baseball commissioner A Bartlett Giamatti banned Rose from the game. Forever. Rose didn’t think it would stick. But Giamatti died of a heart attack just a week after penalising Rose. Since then, no other MLB commissioner has seriously considered reversing the ban, which means Rose could very well be the best..

October 1, 2024

Episode 34: Football returns, DC gets in the game and more

Welcome back to the World Series of Politics! This week Brandt Iden and Brendan Bussmann guide you through the early weeks of the NFL’s $35bn season and Washington DC sports betting finally getting competitive.

If that’s not enough we’ve also got Missouri sports betting confirming its place on the ballot and some rumblings about Arkansas igaming. Arkansas sports betting – limited to one casino and two racinos – hasn’t quite hit the numbers so will replicating that model work for online casino?

Listen to the World Series of Politics on Apple Podcasts

We’ve got all the latest regulatory wranglings in this episode. Brendan even finds time to solve a Rubik’s cube live on air.

October 1, 2024

A look at all DraftKings regulatory penalties this year

The online gambling giant has now been hit with over $300,000 in penalties across four states
DraftKings keeps rolling the dice with various authorities, from state regulators to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The result? The online gambling operator is repeatedly crapping out.

Casino Reports counts four instances in this year alone in which DraftKings has been hit with fines by regulators. Included is a pair of six-figure wallops.

Here they are, in order from largest to smallest:

X’d out
Last week, the SEC hit DraftKings with a $200,000 (£149,251/€178,756) fine over the company’s public relations team’s posts on the X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn accounts of founder and CEO Jason Robins on 2 July.

The posts in question stated that DraftKings was experiencing “really strong growth” in states where it was operating.

The problem? According to the SEC, those posts violated Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act and Regulation FD. In short, the company was telling tale..

October 1, 2024

Not much to like about SAFE Bet Act, say industry insiders and addiction advocates

It turns out that no one – not even problem and responsible gambling advocates – are embracing the SAFE Bet Act, unveiled at a press conference earlier this month by US Representative Paul Tonko and Senator Richard Blumenthal. It's already been publicly called “obnoxious” and “insulting”.
The SAFE Bet Act attempts to reverse the 2018 Supreme Court decision to make legal sports betting a states’ rights issue. It does not yet have a bill number and has not been filed. UCLA clinical professor of psychology Dr Tim Fong said the current version of the bill would “do more harm than good”.

Jeff Ifrah, a gaming lawyer and a founding member of iDevelopment and Economic Association (iDEA), told iGB that the bill is a lot to process because “the first suggestion out of the gate [is] to include an unconstitutional registration requirement”. He also said the bill sponsors appear to be trying to “fill some sort of need that doesn’t exist”.

There is much not to like about SAFE Bet Act, say t..

October 1, 2024

Influx of Brazil betting licence applications as enforcement deadline passes

With the deadline for licence applications from operators wishing to be active in Brazil during the transition period closing at 11.59pm yesterday (30 September), a late flurry has taken the total of requests to 182.
In mid-September, the Brazil government published Normative Ordinance No 1,475. This set out plans to launch enforcement action against operators that failed to submit a licence application by 1 October.

Only companies that were both already active and that had applied for a licence would be allowed to continue operating in the transition period between 1 October and 31 December. This counts down to the legal online market launch on 1 January 2025.

This is the second key licensing deadline in Brazil. The first passed on 20 August when the initial 90-day window of preference shut. The 113 operators that applied during that period ensured their applications will be processed by the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA) ahead of the legal market’s launch date.

The announcem..