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Tennessee’s sports wagering regulator approved a $50,000 fine against Caesars Entertainment Wednesday for taking more than 2,500 illegal wagers over a five-week stretch.
The Sports Wagering Council (SWC) voted unanimously to levy the fine against Caesars after the company self-reported that it had illegally accepted proposition wagers on college sports, which are prohibited under state law.
Stephanie Maxwell, general counsel for the SWC, said that Caesars reported on April 13 that it had accepted 2,513 illegal proposition wagers on the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament between February 28 and April 3.
Those wagers, Maxwell said, accounted for just over $50,000 in betting handle.
“Caesars self-reported the violation, they represented the conduct was unintentional, however it was in clear violation of the public interest given the statutory prohibition against college prop wagers, and it did go on for a period of five weeks,” Maxwell said.
“Based on all of that, we have suggested the council assess a level 2 fine of $10,000 for each of the five weeks that the impermissible wagers were accepted for a total of $50,000.”
Maxwell said that following the infractions, Caesars had added two additional staffers to their compliance team in response, as well as the team undergoing additional training to ensure reviews and audits are treated properly.
“I think it’s important for us and frankly for others to get a sense of how this happens,” said council member Tom Lee. “I know these conversations are happening around the country, this is a serious issue of bets being placed either by people who shouldn’t be placing them or on games or events where the wager shouldn’t be happening,”
“It’s really important to know how that happened, and to me, it’s the audit function I look to as the control on these things,” he continued. “I know not everybody cab be aware of every wager in real time at any moment, but somewhere between zero and 2,000 one would think you would become aware sooner than five weeks.”
“I appreciate a good operator of ours self-reporting something. Stuff happens, this isn’t the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last,” added Billy Orgel, the council’s chairman.
“If you read through some of the operator’s applications, they make mistakes like this all over the country, and it seems a vast majority of it gets self-reported.”
Coincidentally, the next item on Wednesday’s agenda was the renewal of Caesars’ sports-betting operator license, but council members did not hold the infractions against them, unanimously approving license renewals for both Caesars and Hard Rock Digital.
