ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey regulators have imposed a $33,000 fine on the sports betting company bet365 for accepting bets on events whose outcomes were already known, as well as on games not authorized for betting.
The state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement announced on Wednesday that bet365 made several mistakes by taking wagers on games after specific events had occurred.
In one notable instance, the company allowed bets on a mixed martial arts match that took place a week earlier, which was being showcased on tape.
Bet365 did not respond to inquiries for comment on Thursday and Friday.
This is the second time in just over two months that New Jersey regulators have taken action against this British company.
In July, the Division of Gaming Enforcement ordered bet365 to refund $519,000 to customers who won bets but received lower payouts than promised because the company changed the odds without approval at the time of payment.
In that situation, bet365 claimed the change was due to an “obvious error.” However, officials from the division pointed out that any adjustments to payouts require prior approval from the agency, which bet365 failed to obtain.
The recent fine involves several betting incidents starting on February 3, 2022. On that day, the scheduled start of a college basketball game between Louisiana-Lafayette and Arkansas-Little Rock was moved up an hour, but bet365 kept the original betting odds in place.
Two weeks later, similar pre-match odds were offered on a Honda Golf Classic for four hours after the event had already started.
On the same day, the company accepted wagers on two mixed martial arts fights after those matches had also concluded, according to state reports.
In April of that year, bet365 accepted bets on a Professional Fighters League match that had already occurred a week prior, indicating a failure to confirm the event’s completion.
The company also mistakenly took bets on unauthorized events, including European friendly soccer matches that were not approved for betting by New Jersey, as well as wagers on the Rutgers University football team, which is prohibited under New Jersey law.
In most of these cases, bet365 canceled the bets—totaling over $257,000—and returned the money to the customers. However, in one situation, the company changed the odds without seeking approval from regulators before paying off winners.
To explain its errors, bet365 attributed them to various issues, including human mistakes in inputting event start times into their betting system and software malfunctioning in certain cases.
The company has since informed regulators that it has retrained its staff to prevent such issues from happening again.
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