Regulators at the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) issued a $25,000 fine to PointsBet for accepting wagers on unauthorized events. Those unauthorized events included a local college basketball game, an incident involving past posting, and an international League of Legends tournament. It’s a situation that points out the importance of compliance officers at gambling operators and the level of detail at which those officers must work.
PointsBet’s unauthorized wager troubles started back in August 2021 when it accepted wagers on an English Champions match between Cardiff City and Millwall. The problem was that PointsBet continued taking action on the match after it had been completed. One sharp-eyed player placed five bets totaling $13,500 to win $28,275 on the already completed match. Those wagers were voided and the winnings refunded to the operator.
In October of 2021, PointsBet allowed two wagers totaling $1,225 to be processed for the League of Legends World Championships esports event. The problem with this event, that all the other operators apparently were wise to, is that it included a 17-year-old player. This is a problem as no US State allows regulated operators to take action on events involving minors.
And, finally, on May 25, 2022, PointsBet took several wagers on a New Jersey college basketball game involving St Peter’s University. New Jersey operators are prohibited from accepting wagers on in-state college sports. This was one of the first issues that came up when NJ opened the US regulated sports betting market.
According to a report on iGaming Business, officials at PointsBet claim they were unable to catch the errors because they lacked an automated process to do so and the “overwhelming number of games” they had to process was too much for their existing systems.
DGE regulators did not accept this “my-dog-ate-my-homework” excuse and issued the operator a $25,000 fine for the indiscretions.