Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville fined for sports betting violation
PLAINVILLE — The Massachusetts Gaming Commission on Tuesday fined Plainridge Park Casino $20,000 for offering wagering on an event involving a Massachusetts collegiate team not involved in a collegiate tournament.
MGM Springfield was issued the same fine for a similar violation. Encore Boston Harbor was fined $10,000. Betting on state college teams not involved in a tournament is prohibited under state law.
The gaming commission said Plainridge accepted 33 wagers across 27 tickets on a Feb. 2 men’s regular season basketball game between Merrimack College and Long Island University.
Plainridge notified the commission’s Sports Wagering Division on Feb. 3 that wagering was mistakenly offered on the unauthorized event for approximately seven hours. The event was recognized by a casino employee when a patron sought to cash a winning ticket that included the game, according to the commission.
In a number of instances, patrons cashed winning tickets ahead of Plainridge identifying the issue and implementing a fix. Patrons who sought to cash a winning ticket after Plainridge noticed the problem had their wagers refunded, as did patrons who produced a losing ticket.
This event was available for wagering due to a back end data entry error where the location of Merrimack College was listed as being in Florida.
Kambi, Plainridge’s sports wagering vendor, has addressed the issue and corrected Merrimack College’s location to Massachusetts, the commission said. Kambi has also confirmed that no other games involving a Massachusetts team were offered. No suspicious wagering activity was identified upon a review of the wagers placed.
Additionally, Kambi has conducted an audit to ensure Massachusetts college sports teams’ regular season games have not been, and are not available to be, wagered on.
The commission said it appreciated that both Plainridge and MGM Springfield immediately brought the violations to its attention. Plainridge also rewarded the team member who brought the incident to its attention.
MGM Springfield offered wagers on a Feb. 33 Harvard v. Yale men’s basketball game and on a Feb. 4 Harvard v. Brown men’s basketball game. Wagering was offered for approximately 21 hours and 20 hours on each of those events respectively, and 28 tickets were sold that included wagers on the two events. All wagers were placed at kiosks, and two winning tickets were redeemed at the sportsbook counter and two other winning tickets were redeemed at a kiosk.
