William Hill set for $100k Nevada fine over regulatory failings
Sportsbook operator agrees regulatory penalty with state officials over duplicated bets glitch lasting more than six years
William Hill US will pay the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) $100,000 over a six-year-long glitch in its sports betting operation which resulted in 55,000 bets being duplicated.
The fault stemmed from an online processing error on the William Hill app operating in the Silver State, a fault first identified in June 2021 following consumer complaints to the operator over duplicated bets.
In the same month, the Caesars-owned bookmaker implemented a system patch to correct the erroneous wagers issue but failed to notify the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) of the issue.
The NGCB only learned of the fault in September 2021 as a result of conversations between the regulator and a bettor in dispute with the operator.
William Hill then triggered a month-long investigation into the glitch, an investigation which identified duplicate wagers placed for the same betting amount, on the same event and with the same odds occurring within 60 seconds of the original bet being placed.
Investigators discovered that erroneous duplicate wagers had been occurring since 2015. In addition, Hills found that in the period prior to 2021, when a bettor contacted the customer service team about the duplicate losing wager, in most cases those wagers were refunded, with no further action taken.
A total of 42,000 erroneous duplicate losing wagers were identified between 2015 and December 20, 2021, with losses of $1.3m being incurred by bettors over the period.
In respect of winning duplicate wagers, the operator pinpointed 13,000 winning bets during the timeframe, resulting in winnings for customers totalling $2m.
The NGCB complaint stated: “When the system was under load, the queue that holds the wagers would back up and a patron who placed an initial wager would see a processing message, become impatient, exit the application, and attempt the same wager again.
“When the system eventually stabilized, all items in the queue would be processed by the system, including the multiple wager attempts by the patron.”
The NGCB has said these issues constituted two violations of Nevada Gaming Law.
William Hill has since paid back the $1.3m to the losing bettors, recouping the $2m paid out to winners.
In a further complaint, the operator was found to have not provided adequate customer service during 2021 when it received a significant amount of calls and complaints about race books and sports pools.
William Hill later terminated its telephone and chat support in January 2022, with all subsequent complaints handled via email only.
The NGCB said it received significant complaints from Nevada, including excessively long hold times, a lack of responsiveness and an inability to reach a customer services representative at William Hill.
A fourth NGCB complaint concerned a $3,350 cash shortage at the William Hill sportsbook located in the Red Garter Casino in West Wendover, Nevada, first identified in April 2022.
The bookmaker later discovered an employee was making multiple wagers using cash from his cash draw.
However, the operator was found to have not notified the NGCB until a month later on May 12, constituting a violation of Nevada regulations regarding the immediate reporting of suspected embezzlement.
An order forcing Hills to pay a $100,000 penalty was signed off by the NGCB on August 24, with the NGC set to approve the settlement payment in a meeting taking place later today.