The Kansspelautoriteit, a body that regulates gambling in the Netherlands, has fined Merkur Casino Almere over an exclusion-related breach. According to the authority, the casino operator allowed a self-excluded person to play over a two-week period.

The person in question was registered in the Netherlands’ self-exclusion register (CRUKS) and was supposed to be barred from playing with a casino operator. Yet, the player managed to successfully gain access to Merkur Casino in Almere.

The Kansspelautoriteit noted that Merkur Casino allowed the player to enter its property a total of nine times in the period from February 17, 2022, to March 2, 2022. This was a clear violation of the local gambling rules and a breach of Merkur’s social responsibility obligations.

The Player Was Registered in the CRUKS

CRUKS is an official register containing all people who have excluded themselves from playing high-risk gambling. All companies that hold a license in the Netherlands are required to diligently check that a player’s name is not registered in the CRUKS.

This measure, which Merkur failed to properly follow, seeks to protect gamblers who consider themselves prone to addiction from harm. However, a technical error prevented Merkur from properly checking whether the person in question was excluded or not.

According to the KSA, Merkur received an error message when trying to check the person’s name in the CRUKS. If the casino company had decided to follow protocol, it should have barred the player from entering until it was able to confirm whether their name appears in the register.

However, Merkur Casino Almere decided to take a risk and instead allowed the gambler to enter the property and play.

As a result of these violations, the KSA handed a fine of €45,000 (almost $50,000) to Merkur.

KSA Recently Fined Betent

Speaking of fines, the KSA recently slapped Betent with a $438,000 fine over illegal advertisements. The casino operator, the regulator reported, disregarded the local advertising standards and advertised to young adults.

Advertising to vulnerable groups is considered to be a serious violation of the local gambling rules. While Betent may not have intently targeted young adults, its messages ended up reaching such an audience.

While Dutch young adults are not prohibited from playing, local operators are prohibited from targeting them with ads. This is because the market believes that young people are still developing and therefore extra susceptible to gambling addiction.

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The Louisiana Illuminator reported that Louisiana’s casinos may soon be allowed to offer fixed-odds bets on horse racing, according to a proposal that advanced on April 17. 

Louisiana Horse Racing Association Shows Support for Fixed-Odds Betting Proposal

Fixed-odds betting would bring horse racing wagers in line with most other bets at sportsbooks, such as basketball or football games. Under fixed-odds betting, a bet placed with 5-to-1 odds would pay off at that rate no matter what subsequent bets are made on a race. Pari-mutuel bettors compete against each other, which can impact odds as more money is a bet on a horse.

The proposal has received support from the Louisiana Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, with executive director Ed Fenasci stating in an interview that it would attract a growing segment of gamblers to horse racing. 

The legislation also seeks to lower the share of fixed-odds profits that casinos forward to the state’s licensed racing association from 25% to 15% to encourage sportsbooks to participate.

The House Commerce Committee did not receive any opposition to the bill, and it was advanced without issue. If passed, it would mark a significant change for Louisiana’s horse racing industry and could potentially increase revenue for casinos and the racing association.

Louisiana Sportsbooks Profit $37M in December 2022

The Louisiana sports betting industry broke its record revenue in December 2022, bringing in $37 million, with the majority of the revenue generated by mobile sports betting, accounting for $30.5 million, while retail sports betting generated $6.4 million. 

This was the fourth time Louisiana sportsbooks had surpassed $30 million in a month, making it the highest-grossing month for the sports betting industry in Louisiana. Despite a decline in total handle, operators still managed to bring in a profit of $37 million due to a hold of 14% in mobile wagers and 18% in retail tickets, which marked a total win rate of 14.5%. 

Football was a significant contributor to the revenue generated by both mobile and retail sportsbooks in Louisiana, with mobile operators profiting $7.2 million, and retail operators profiting $2.9 million as a result of football-related bets. Even though the state’s revenue was lower in December than in both November and October, it still brought in over $4.3 million in taxes. The revenue loss reported in November was due to a massive payout of $75 million to Texas furniture mogul Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale after placing multiple high-stake bets on the Houston Astros winning the World Series. McIngvale’s major winnings resulted in a revenue decline of 206% in November.

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Reno, Nevada-based Monarch Monarch Casino’s Colorado online sportsbook has been levied a fine of $400,000 for accepting proxy bets from nearly a dozen bettors. The Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission imposed the penalty because taking or placing bets for another person is illegal in Colorado. The sportsbook is operated out of Monarch Black Hawk Casino in Black Hawk, Co.

The bets were taken over the company’s sports betting app, BetMonarch. The company announced on Thursday that it would switch its geolocation provider from the current app provider, Stadium Solutions – a provider of sportsbetting platforms owned by Entain – to a near monopoly holder in the vertical in the United States, GeoComply.

According to an article found on CIOReview, a leading print and digital magazine for enterprise technology vendors & buyers, the State of Delaware also uses Stadium enterprise solutions but makes no mention of geolocation services. The review appears to claim that the company provides a platform to 17 of 21 sportsbetting host systems in Nevada.

Geolocation Not Usually so Easily Defeated

Geolocation services normally track the GPS location of a mobile phone and use other data such as nearby WiFi traffic to identify the phone’s location within a state’s boundaries with near absolute certainty. Proxy betting is one of if not the only ways to defeat the safeguards. Proxy betting is also used in land-based casinos, especially in Asia, to defeat travel restrictions as well as for unscrupulous actors to collect commissions on bets placed by high rollers from out of the area.

The breaches were purportedly discovered by the operator in June and self-reported to the regulator, resulting in the negotiated settlement.

The ensuing investigation found that more than $60,000 in wagers were placed for customers by three Monarch employees over about a year and a half spanning January 2021 through June 2022. Almost 80 bets were placed for 11 bettors in violation of the prohibition.

The company’s online sportsbook manager reportedly placed 60 of those bets after accessing the registered gamblers’ accounts. The manager and two other lead persons in the sportsbook division were suspended when the activity was discovered and later all three were fired.

Most of the bets came from players who were out of state at the time the bets were placed. Due to federal laws criminalizing interstate sports betting, geolocation services are critical to a provider’s compliance with state law as laws in every state are only passed to allow intra-state sportsbetting if operators can guarantee no out-of-state bets can be placed.

It’s unclear how the switch to GeoComply from Stadium will solve the problem going forward due to intellectual property rights and trade secrets. The Stadium system was defeated fairly easily and Geocomply may have other layers of security as it is a stand-alone solution whereas Stadium’s was part of an entire enterprise solution and management system.

System Didn’t Analyze Transactions Deeply Enough

However, the settlement agreement stated: “Stadium did not analyze geolocation transactions to detect the use of multiple device IDs and unrealistic location ‘jumping’ in order to identify potential proxy bets for out-of-state patrons.”

In the aforementioned CIO review, it stated that the “CEO of Stadium Solutions emphasized the complexity involved in creating [the]

.”

In one case at Monarch, a patron in Florida contacted the sportsbook manager to help him place a bet and within minutes the gambler had sent his username and password to the manager in an SMS.

The bettor was able to make a deposit and within minutes a bet was made through his account. Investigators were able to determine that the manager placed the bet on his own work cellphone from within the state’s boundaries with the manager’s home address recorded via GPS at that time.

Several months later the same client sent the manager screenshots of the bets he wanted to place and nearly 50 bets were placed from within Colorado.

The settlement agreement stated: “Many of the screenshots displayed the time, which was two hours ahead of Mountain time, indicating [the patron]

.”

The client was interviewed nearly a year later and admitted to officials that he was in Florida when the bets were placed. It’s unclear if any federal crimes are being investigated at this time.

Monarch received a $5,000 fine for each illegally placed bet as well as another fine of $5,000. The company has 10 days to pay half of the fine with the other half suspended for two years unless another violation occurs in that time.

Source: Monarch Fined $400K for Proxy Betting, Switches to GeoComply for Geolocation Services, Casino.org, February 17, 2023

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