The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is once again cashing in on fines from sportsbooks.
Commissioners voted Thursday to fine Fanatics $20,000 over illegal wagering on a non-tournament Boston College football game against Michigan State University. The recommendation came from the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau, who commissioners assigned to investigate the violation in January.
State law in Massachusetts prohibits betting on in-state college teams during the regular season. Betting on in-state college teams is only allowed if they are participating in a tournament with four or more teams.
The bets took place from Sept. 15, 2024 through Sept. 20, 2024, Diandra Franks, enforcement counsel for the commission said during a commission meeting. Boston College played at home against Michigan State on Sept. 21, 2024, according to the team’s website. BC won the game 23-19.
Franks said 83 wagers were accepted for a total handle of $3,325. Twenty-three were straight bets for a $2,118 stake and 60 were parlays totaling $1,207.
If a wager was initially settled as a loss, it was voided and the original stake was returned. If the wager was a winner, Fanatics allowed the wager to stand, Franks said. If the bet was a parlay with a cancelled selection, it was paid out with one less leg.
Since the Legislature legalized sports wagering in 2022 and the commission launched the regulated activity in 2023, regulators have dealt with instances in which sports betting companies have accepted (and potentially profited from) illegal bets.
This marks the third time Fanatics has been fined by the commission, bringing its total to $45,000. It is one of many “noncompliance matters” the commission has reviewed related to illegal betting on a non-tournament Massachusetts college sporting event.
Some have led to fines on operators. The commission in July hit DraftKings with the largest fine imposed on a sports betting company yet, penalizing the company $450,000 for flagrant violations of the state law that prohibits the use of credit card funds for wagering.
Eileen O’Brien was the only commissioner to vote against the penalty, saying she is disappointed with the fine. O’Brien said the fine should be more severe because raising the penalty $5,000 for each offense “is not much of a deterrent” for the company.
“For the third offense on this I would have gone harsher,” O’Brien said. “…Three times in a couple of years with a smack on the wrist. I just think there needs to be more done to make sure this doesn’t continue.”
While commissioner Nakisha Skinner was not against the fine itself, she noted that the “common denominator” of the violations is a single person from Fanatics’ trading or trading compliance teams and questioned if there was a way to ensure the sportsbook’s employees don’t keep making the same mistake.
”I don’t mean to be unreasonable here, but I would like the opportunity for the operator to address whether they do see that as an issue and if so, how do they plan to address it,” Skinner said, adding she would like to get a report back from Fanatics through the IEB on her questions.
The bets were caused by a manual override of offering limits by a member of the trading team, according to the commission documents. That employee was reassigned and is no longer at Fanatics, Franks said.
Franks said IEB spoke to Fanatics about the issue and they have implemented a “progressive discipline model” as a result of its mistakes.
Fanatics self-reported the incident to the commission in 2024 and takes “full responsibility for the bets placed on markets that should not have been made available in the Commonwealth,” Fanatics spokesperson Kevin Hennessy said in a statement to the News Service Thursday.
“We take compliance seriously and will continue to improve our safeguards and processes in the future,” Hennessy said.
As commissioners continue to handle cases of illegal sports betting, the industry has taken off in popularity since its launch, and is also fueling the state’s coffers.
The Gaming Commission reported $52.34 million in taxable sports wagering revenue was generated across the seven mobile/online sports wagering licensees and three in-person licensees for September. Since sports wagering began in person on Jan. 31, 2023, the state has collected about $339.15 million in total taxes and assessments from licensed sports wagering operations.