Live! Casino Philadelphia Fined $100K for Taking Proxy Sports Bets

Posted on: June 27, 2024, 10:13h. 

Last updated on: June 27, 2024, 10:24h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

Stadium Casino RE, LLC, the operator of Live! Casino and Hotel Philadelphia in the city’s Stadium District, has been slapped with a $100K fine for violating Pennsylvania’s sports wagering regulatory conditions.

Live! Casino Philadelphia sportsbook fine
An aerial view of Live! Casino and Hotel Philadelphia. The casino’s FanDuel Sportsbook took banned proxy bets from a bettor that resulted in the resort’s operating company being hit with a $100K fine. (Image: Tripadvisor)

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) signed off on a consent agreement offered by the Board’s Office of Enforcement Counsel (OEC) to Stadium Casino to settle the regulatory mishaps. Live! officials conceded that several of its FanDuel Sportsbook employees wrongly took bets via the telephone from a bettor who wasn’t physically located on the casino’s grounds.

The state probe said it found at least 15 wagers were facilitated totaling $287,421 over eight says for a patron who wasn’t present in the casino. Proxy wagers, or placing bets on behalf of another, are prohibited in Pennsylvania.

Along with the $100K fine, the PGCB revoked the gaming employment licenses of three sportsbook employees who accepted and placed the wagers, resulting in their termination.

Regulatory Actions

The PGCB this week also denied motions from two gamblers who were placed on the state’s Involuntary Exclusion List for leaving minors unattended in vehicles while they gambled inside a casino.

Actions such as these to deny statewide gambling privileges serve as a reminder that adults are prohibited from leaving minors unattended in the parking lot or garage, a hotel, or other venues at a casino since it creates a potentially unsafe and dangerous environment for the children,” the PGCB wrote.

Pennsylvania’s iGaming Involuntary Exclusion List is also expanding. The PGCB added 11 more people to the blacklist this week after determining that those individuals engaged in iGaming fraud.

The board said 10 of the individuals were found to have used someone else’s name and identifiers to establish fraudulent iGaming accounts. The 11th person banned reportedly used an iGaming account to launder money by having deposits made into the account with other people’s credit cards before withdrawing the funds to their personal bank account without ever engaging in any gaming activity.

The Board’s Bureau of Investigations and Enforcement conducted the iGaming inquiry and reported the findings to the OEC. The OEC recommended to the board that the 11 people be excluded from further iGaming participation.

Premier Regulatory Agency

Since becoming home to one of the largest gaming industries in the US, the PGCB has emerged as a new “gold standard” of gaming regulation.

Pennsylvania is one of only seven states where online slots and interactive table games are allowed. The commonwealth is home to 17 brick-and-mortar commercial casinos, retail and online sports betting, fantasy sports, and video gaming terminals inside diesel truck stops.

As Japan moves closer to opening its first casino, a delegation from the East Asia country traveled to Pennsylvania last September to meet with PGCB officials to learn about best regulatory casino practices.

PGCB Executive Director Kevin O’Toole told Casino.org following the meeting that the Japanese officials were “very focused on learning as much as they can,” with their primary objective to better understand how the state goes about conducting background checks on key casino personnel and how the board performs investigations into possible regulatory noncompliance.