William Hill to Pay a Fine of $20,000 For Accepting Bets on Past Events

By Matt Speakman,
Betting Expert at online-gambling.com

Matt Speakman Betting Expert at online-gambling.com

A die-hard fan of the Patriots, Matt Speakman is an expert on everything related to sports betting and DFS sites. Over the years, he has proven a valuable asset for our team at online-gambling.com. You can find Speakman's professional tips and tricks in any of his many articles on the website.

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Last updated: December 23, 2024

One of the more popular sports betting companies, William Hill, was caught by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement for accepting wagers on competitions that were already finished. This is not William Hill’s first fine for the same transgression. The betting operator blames its sportsbook supplier.

NJDGE’s Judgement

The Division of Gaming Enforcement of New Jersey has fined the British igaming brand William Hill for $20,000. This is due to the company accepting wagers for events that have already been completed in the past. The transgressions occured in the period between 2022 and 2023.

Most of these wagers were on college basketball, hockey, and boxing and were placed at their Atlantic City casinos. These illicit bets total $25,000. William Hill denies taking the fall and blames OpenBet, a sportsbook platform provider that has worked with them for a long time, for the mistake.

William Hills Take on The Matter

After this mistake was identified, William Hill managed to void some of the wagers but could not do so for already paid-out winnings. In total, they are over $5,000 among six players who placed bets on college basketball games through self-service kiosks owned by the brand.

Until the company noticed the mistake, it received 42 invalid wagers through retail kiosks on different college basketball games. William Hill blames its sportsbook software provider, OpenBet, for the error. The sportsbook software provider has not yet made a statement on the matter.

William Hill has also accepted invalid bets on two boxing matches. On June 11, 2022, the fight between Chris Kongo and Sebastian Formella was advertised to start at noon. The brand took bets at the advertised time, but the fight began at 11:15 a.m. and finished at 11:55 a.m.

William Hill again took illicit bets on 15th April 2023 for the Denzel Bentley-Kieran Smith fight. The same thing happened. They advertised the fight to start at noon, but it started at 11:55 am and ended 45 seconds later with a knockout.

While we are not talking about stellar sums of money or a targeted attempt to cheat the system, these types of errors show a big void in the way platforms work. Hopefully, these mistakes will help operators and sportsbook software providers improve their service quality.

The Division Continues to Be Vigilant

Of course, William Hill is not the only company to be fined this year for accepting invalid bets on past events. Another popular igaming company, bet365, was fined $33,000 for both accepting wagers on completed events and on games that were not approved for gambling. On top of that, the brand was ordered by the NJDGE to return $519,000 to players who won but were paid less due to unregulated odd changes

Amelco, a sports betting software company, was fined $10,000 for an error that allowed the sportsbook PlayUp to accept a wager when it was not supposed to. The wager was on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg becoming the next U.S. president.

While bets on political events are legal, the time when this wager was made was not allowed. The NJDGE is always on the lookout for such irregularities, especially after the tightening of betting rules due to the Paul vs Tyson fight.