New Jersey DGE fines William Hill $20,000 for wrongly-placed bets

The sportsbook took bets on college basketball, hockey and boxing after the events had already concluded.

The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) has fined William Hill sportsbook $20,000 for taking bets that were placed after the matches ended during 2022 and 2023. The sportsbook took $25,000 worth of bets on college basketball, hockey and boxing matches, voiding the majority after the error was discovered. 

William Hill operates retail sportsbooks in Atlantic City at the Caesars, Harrah’s and Tropicana casinos. The casinos’ parent company, Caesars Entertainment, has not issued a response to the fine at the time of writing. 

According to documents from the DGE, on February 23 and 24, 2022, William Hill took 42 bets via in-person kiosks on 12 college basketball games after the results were already known. It paid just over $5,000 to customers on six bets before it became aware of the error, while the remainder of the bets were voided and the customers’ initial wagers were returned.

William Hill blamed the error on a sportsbook content supplier, London-based OpenBet. 

On June 11, 2022, William Hill took bets on a Chris Kongo-Sebastian Formella boxing match that it had advertised starting at noon local time, but the event concluded by 11:55am. On April 15, 2023, the operator took bets on a Denzel Bentley-Kieran Smith fight after it had already ended as well.

Good to know: A gambling patron in Las Vegas filed an appeal with the Nevada Gaming Control Board regarding a winning bet placed with William Hill sportsbook on October 22

The DGE also fined Amelco, a London-based sports betting technology company, $10,000 for violations including allowing sportsbook PlayUp to accept political wagers. In March 2022, a user placed a bet on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg becoming the next US president.

Although recent court decisions allowed political betting in November’s election, it was not allowed at the time the bet was made.

PlayUp utilized Amelco and Sportradar as its sportsbook providers. According to the DGE, Amelco blamed Sportadar for wrongly listing the US presidential election as an approved wagering market.

Kirk Geller

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