BetMGM was found to have taken thousands of student-athlete prop betting wagers during last year’s college football season, a direct violation of Massachusetts sports betting laws.
College Athletes Off Limits
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) has been down this road before with mobile sports betting operator, BetMGM.
A summary judgment was issued against BetMGM and its retail partner, MGM Springfield, for taking bets on in-state college sports shortly after betting went live in the Baystate last January. The company was subsequently fined $20,000 last July for those bets taken on the Harvard men’s basketball team.
Of course, BetMGM isn’t the only sportsbook to run afoul of the MGC, as other sportsbooks operating in the Commonwealth have been tagged with fines as well. However, many of those came as a result of self-reporting the violations as opposed to an audit in which the improprieties were exposed.
This is precisely what happened in BetMGM’s latest transgression, as Bay State regulators found the company accepted more than 15,000 wagers during this past college football season, amounting to over $200,000 as the result of an audit conducted by the state. Those bets consisted of college player props that came through the same-game parlay feature and were overlooked by management.
Adjudicatory Hearing
In Massachusetts, player props on college athletes are taboo, as is betting on in-state college athletic teams, for which BetMGM was previously fined.
In addition to the thousands of wagers found in violation of Massachusetts law, the audit also revealed a minor infraction which was a parlay wager of less than $10, in which one leg included a Northeastern University men’s basketball game. Northeastern is located in downtown Boston.
Because of the nature of the violations, an adjudicatory hearing has been set to determine the severity of the fines.
“Prop bets on students is a statutory violation here in Massachusetts. It’s a conversation that’s starting to happen across the nation as to whether it’s appropriate,” said MGC Chair Cathy Judd-Stein. “Massachusetts got this right. I know I’m personally interested in resolving this matter as quickly as possible for the protection of student-athletes.”
Not an Outlier
Massachusetts’ prohibition on college athlete prop betting is not an outlier. Only six states including Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia, permit college player prop bets.
It is not yet certain to what degree BetMGM will be fined or what other penalties it may incur. However, there are two chief differences between this violation and the previous violation when BetMGM took bets on Harvard basketball shortly following the launch of sports betting in the Bay State.
First, the sheer number of bets that were accepted (over 15,000) versus only $1,230 in bets on the Harvard basketball game makes the latest far more egregious. Secondly, and perhaps even more concerning, was that BetMGM had self-reported its first violation but these most recent violations were only exposed due to an audit.
The hearing will also likely attempt to determine if the violations were deliberately covered up or if management was unaware of the infractions.
OddsTrader will continue to monitor this story and update our readers as events unfold.
