The New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) is hitting DraftKings with a $100,000 fine for improperly reporting the amount of money wagered on parlay bets. DraftKings’ reporting errors occurred over a period of several months across 2023-2024 and were tied directly to the company’s casino partner, Resorts International.
Licensed online betting operators are responsible for providing reams of data to state regulators every month and, as the DGE is showing, that data is taken very seriously. While DraftKings’ errors in reporting win and handle numbers; and parlay numbers may seem trivial to the layman, that’s not how regulators view the situation. The information that operators report to regulators is used to determine how much they ultimately end up paying in taxes. In the categories that were flagged as inaccurate, DraftKings’ data was off by 87 percent, which is pretty significant.
Along with the $100,000 fine (which is a pretty trivial amount to an operation like DraftKings) DGE Interim Director Mary Jo Flaherty also delivered some extremely harsh words in a letter to the company. Flaherty did not mince words telling DraftKings, “These types of gross errors and failures cannot be tolerated in the New Jersey gaming regulatory system. They evidenced weaknesses in DraftKings’ business abilities and casino experience and unacceptable conduct in dealing with regulations and requisite reporting and financial systems.”
DraftKings’ officials took the high road in their response to the fine telling SBC Americas, “We value our relationship with the DGE and are committed to ensuring compliance with all regulatory guidelines. There was an error in the reporting of our wagering mix breakdown to the state that we have corrected by implementing additional controls.”