Pennsylvania Fines Live! Casino for Proxy Bets

• Live! Casino Philadelphia fined $100,000 for illegal phone bets totaling $287,421.
• Three employees fired, licenses revoked; patron banned from PA gambling.
• Casino tightened surveillance and banned personal phones in the sportsbook area.

Pensylvannia phone betting fines: Live! Casino and Hotel Philadelphia

Live! Casino and Hotel Philadelphia is facing a $100,000 fine from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board after accepting sports wagers by phone.

The fine was placed after several team members placed 15 bets totaling $287,421 over an eight-day period in 2022 from a patron who was not in the casino. Such bets, known as proxy wagers, are prohibited under casino policy, the board regulations and the Pennsylvania Gambling Act.

Three Live! Casino employees were also terminated and had their gaming employment licenses revoked. Meanwhile, the patron was placed on an Involuntary Exclusion list and is barred from gambling in Pennsylvania in the future.

“This is not the culture of our organization,” Craig Clark, general manager and EVP at Live! Philadelphia, told the PGCB. “We have a culture of compliance and training. These are obviously violations of the gaming regulations and our training procedures. We apologize for this occurrence.”

Here’s more on the PA phone betting fines.

Bettor Ducks Out

According to the PGCB, an employee of the casino received a text to place three wagers totaling $95,000. Two were $37,500 and the other was $20,000. The person who requested the bets said he’d be in that later that night to pay.

However, after all three bets lost, the person never showed up to pay the balance. The bettor later claimed the money was stolen from his house.

An investigation into the situation found that the same individual had placed 12 other wagers where he was not present at the casino. He paid for each of those bets regardless of whether they won or lost.

The PGCB did not disclose more information about the specific bets, including what sport(s) they covered. Pennsylvania allows betting on all four Major North American sports (MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL), college sports and more.

Stay tuned for more updates on the PA phone betting fines.

More Preventative Measures in Place

Live! Casino Philadelphia took additional measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, including lowering its surveillance notification threshold to $10,000. It also banned employees from using personal phones or smartwatches in the sportsbook area. Employees instead have company-issued phones to communicate. This is just a start at preventing more issues following the PA phone betting fines.

Employees are also subject to quarterly training programs that review the restrictions against proxy betting.

Live! Casino Philadelphia said it has not run into any problems since the aforementioned incident. Clark said that gives him “comfort that the policies and procedures are being administered the way we intend them to be.”

Industry Leaders

Since launching legal online sports betting in 2019, Pennsylvania has been among the leaders in the industry. It consistently ranks among the top five handles, alongside neighboring New York and New Jersey.

Individuals can bet on practically anything and everything, from MLB standings to world sports betting.

Pennsylvania is also one of the few states with online casinos, which have proven to be massive revenue generators. Operators such as DraftKings and FanDuel offer these games.

For sports betting news, odds, analysis, and more, visit Point Spreads Sports Magazine

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