The major players in the US online sports betting industry have once again drawn the ire of Bay State regulators after accepting wagers on college player prop bets.
Breaking the Rules
According to reports, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) is investigating violations of their college sports betting rules by industry titans, FanDuel and DraftKings. The regulations specifically state that no player props are allowed on collegiate players and no bets on games involving Massachusetts schools will be permitted unless there are four or more teams involved in a tournament.
That last caveat was included to address the wildly popular Beanpot hockey tournament, played every February at the TD Garden by Massachusetts schools including Boston College, Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern. It was also intended to allow those betting within Massachusetts the opportunity to wager on postseason competitions, most notably, March Madness, the men’s and women’s national college basketball tournament.
What Happened?
The infractions allegedly occurred during this past football season when FanDuel allowed nine bets worth a combined $69.81 on college football back on September 9th, 2023. The alleged violations were not specified.
And neither were those lodged against Boston-based DraftKings, a company that is accused of allowing promotional bets on one player during the January 8th college football national championship between Michigan and Alabama, totaling $457.80.
The MGC has authorized the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau (IEB) to collect more information on the violations and determine whether the companies have taken measures to determine the reason why the transgressions occurred and what steps will be taken going forward to prevent it from happening again.
Should the mobile sportsbook operators fail to satisfy the IEB and the MGC, then audits will have to be undertaken to rectify any internal issues.
This is not the first flurry of indiscretions by Massachusetts sportsbooks, as the Encore Boston Harbor, a Wynn property, was slapped with a $40,000 fine early last week for allowing betting on an in-state college basketball team while both FanDuel and DraftKings have also run afoul of the MGC rules before.
Not the First Time
In May of last year, DraftKings had self-reported a violation in which it revealed that it had allowed its sportsbook customers to use out-of-state credit cards to fund their deposits to their sports betting accounts. From the moment online sports betting went live in the Bay State on March 10, 2023, DraftKings’ software failed to differentiate between credit and debit cards until July 13, 2023.
Internal miscommunication was the culprit, according to what DraftKings told Zachary Mercer, an MGC Investigations and Enforcement Bureau attorney. Mercer reported the following at an MGC meeting last year, “[DraftKings] identified the root cause of the failed update as a lack of complete functionality testing. DraftKings explained that the failed update required a change to three internal functions — the financial platform, the account platform, and the sportsbook product.”
When the dust settled it was discovered that 242 bets totaling $83,663 from 218 customer accounts were accessed from credit card funds. A resolution in terms of fines and penalties has yet to be meted out as of this writing.
