The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) has fined BetMGM $260,905 for permitting self-excluded gamblers to play on its site.
The PGCB found 152 instances of players who were self-excluded from gambling, placing wagers across the BetMGM and Borgata platforms.
Upon an audit of accounts, 148 breaches of the rule showed over $252,000 in deposits, with around $82,400 being withdrawn. The difference retained by BetMGM & Borgata as a result was approximately $170,000.
Two additional incidents were highlighted as self-reported. The first, in July 2022, saw a self-excluded individual deposit $700, later withdraw $100, and the iGaming provider retain $600.
The second, in July 2023, saw two additional self-excluded accounts have wagering activity. The total deposited was $183,600, with $92,935.59 withdrawn. BetMGM retained $91,648.41.
The overall figure for the period in review saw over $436,000 deposited by individuals who had placed themself on the exclusion list, with BetMGM retaining upwards of $260,000.
BetMGM’s Compliance Failures and the Resulting Penalty
BetMGM has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $260,905, a $2,500 administrative fee, and will donate $20,000 to the Pennsylvania Council on Problem Gambling.
Commissioner Shawn Dillan expressed surprise that BetMGM’s systems let one player deposit $183,000, “I mean, who’s got that kind of money to deposit $183,000? Doesn’t that raise a red flag?”
He continued, “If somebody puts that big of a deposit into an account, doesn’t somebody got to look into that?”
BetMGM’s Senior Director of Compliance, Sarah Brennan, responded, “We do evaluate players for any inconsistency in play behavior. We have an anti-money laundering team, but we have players of all value who wager on our platform. Based only on deposit amount, it wouldn’t necessarily raise a flag if there weren’t other issues that would have been flagged by fraud risk or AML.”
BetMGM attributed the first error to the platform not properly consuming PII (Personally Identifiable Information). The company now conducts manual line-by-line reviews of any self-exclusion data before it’s uploaded to the platform.
The latter violations were the result of manual errors and technological misconfigurations. BetMGM has told the commission that it now undertakes rigorous system testing and has invested in additional training and oversight.
Commissioner Manzano-Diaz commented regarding human error, “I only have one question—you said, I think it was the second time, it was a human error. So, what do you do about that? How do you address that? That’s a challenging one because, as you know, humans make mistakes.”
BetMGM’s response was to assure the Commission that rigorous training had taken place after the issue, “So when the issue was identified, and the individual who had made the mistake was forthcoming in the fact that they had identified how it happened and that it was a miss—a miss on their part—we went over the process with them again, exactly how it works. And that individual has not made the same mistake twice.”
How BetMGM is Addressing Self-Exclusion Breaches
BetMGM agreed on the settlement terms, given that the company had self-reported the identified issues. It has also outlined remediation measures taken:
- Manual review process for self-exclusion data;
- Increasing the size of the Compliance department from 9 to nearly 100 employees;
- Enhanced training for all staff;
- Investment in back-office technology;
- Regular internal audits for improved accuracy and oversight.
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