In a rare misstep, iGaming pathfinder bet365–the world’s richest privately-owned gambling company–has been sanctioned US$519,000 (£407,834) by an American regulator for ripping punters and a serious breach of betting protocols.
The financial rap has been imposed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) after they found that British, Stoke-on-Trent-origin bet365 had instigated a dozen odds shifts between the 25th of December 2020 and the 18th of November 2022 without legal DGE approval.
Owned by multi-billionaire Denise Coates, the U.K.’s wealthiest woman, bet365 has been punished for under-paying a total of 199 winning wagers on 13 sporting events, as detected by the New Jersey watchdog.
Unusually, bet365 must pay the fine to the bettors — and not the regulator, the DGE has determined.
Most of the 27 of the 50 U.S. states where online sports betting is currently legal do not mandate that operators obtain approval before shifting odds.
But the gambling law in precursor New Jersey, the first state, along with Nevada, to adopt digital sports betting following the repeal of PASPA in 2018, is markedly different.
Unlike current online sportsbook leaders, tub-thumping FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM, bet365 has been operating a softly-softly, low-key expansion programme in the U.S. since first launching in New Jersey–where else?–in early 2019.
Flawed Software
It is now among the top five players–by revenue–in the so-called Garden State, and active in another nine: the latest North Carolina, in March this year; following Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio and Virginia.
Returning to the current contretemps, according to the New Jersey DGE, bet365 altered the odds on the 13 sporting fixtures after they were posted.
“These types of multiple and serious violations cannot be tolerated in the New Jersey gaming regulatory system,” charged DGE Interim Director Mary Jo Flaherty.
“They impact adversely upon bet365’s business abilities and casino experience and evidence impermissible conduct in dealing with regulations, with significant adverse impact upon patrons.
“[They] failed, in all instances, to recognise that although bet365’s house rules were approved by the division, it was with an express statement and caveat that bet365 was prohibited from voiding any wager without prior division approval.”
Pointing to a probable cause for the errors, the DGE argued that bet365 was possibly using flawed software on its operating platform.
“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,” alleged Flaherty.
“These failures are both problematic as to bet365’s 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.”
Declining to elaborate on the New Jersey issue, a spokesperson for bet365 simply affirmed that the original odds were posted in “obvious error”.
An argument rejected by the DGE, who warned bet365–and all-comers–against any further breaches that could be interpreted, quite simply, as ripping-off punters.
