• About Us / Contact
  • Responsible Gambling
This site contains commercial content
SportsHandle
  • US Sports Betting
    • Arizona
    • Arkansas
    • Colorado
    • Connecticut
    • Delaware
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Iowa
    • Kansas
    • Louisiana
    • Maine
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • Mississippi
    • New Jersey
    • New Mexico
    • New York
    • Ohio
    • Oregon
    • Pennsylvania
    • Tennessee
    • Virginia
    • West Virginia
    • Wyoming
  • Pending States
    • California
    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Missouri
    • North Carolina
  • Canada
    • Ontario
    • British Columbia
    • Alberta
  • Sportsbook Apps
    • FanDuel
    • BetMGM
    • Caesars
    • PointsBet
    • BetRivers
  • Tools
    • Sportsbook Bonuses Explained
    • Sports Betting Revenue Tracker
    • Sports Betting Podcasts
    • Partnership Tracker
    • Expected Value
    • Sports Scores And Odds Apps
    • Sports Betting Twitter
    • Guide To ‘Risk-Free’ Bets
  • News
No Result
View All Result
SportsHandle
  • US Sports Betting
    • Arizona
    • Arkansas
    • Colorado
    • Connecticut
    • Delaware
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Iowa
    • Kansas
    • Louisiana
    • Maine
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • Mississippi
    • New Jersey
    • New Mexico
    • New York
    • Ohio
    • Oregon
    • Pennsylvania
    • Tennessee
    • Virginia
    • West Virginia
    • Wyoming
  • Pending States
    • California
    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Missouri
    • North Carolina
  • Canada
    • Ontario
    • British Columbia
    • Alberta
  • Sportsbook Apps
    • FanDuel
    • BetMGM
    • Caesars
    • PointsBet
    • BetRivers
  • Tools
    • Sportsbook Bonuses Explained
    • Sports Betting Revenue Tracker
    • Sports Betting Podcasts
    • Partnership Tracker
    • Expected Value
    • Sports Scores And Odds Apps
    • Sports Betting Twitter
    • Guide To ‘Risk-Free’ Bets
  • News
No Result
View All Result
SportsHandle
No Result
View All Result

William Hill Fined $100K By Nevada For Tech Failings Related To Sports Wagering Platform

A system flaw in the legacy tech platform resulted in thousands of erroneous duplicate wagers

Matt Rybaltowski by Matt Rybaltowski
September 23, 2022
in Regulation
Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The Nevada Gaming Commission issued a $100,000 fine against William Hill on Thursday for a series of infractions related to deficiencies with the sportsbook operator’s sports wagering system.

The infractions stem from a system flaw with William Hill’s sports and cashless wagering system that resulted in the transmission of thousands of erroneous duplicate wagers on the platform over a seven-year period through December 2021. The NGC approved the fine at Thursday’s hearing after William Hill reached a settlement with the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) on Aug. 17.

During the period, the flaw in William Hill’s CBS Race and Sportsbook System caused the platform to process more than 50,000 incorrect duplicate wagers, resulting in patron losses of approximately $1.3 million. Although a bettor intended to only place one wager on a particular event through the system, the flaw resulted in the erroneous duplication of that wager, said Michael Somps, a Nevada senior deputy attorney general at Thursday’s hearing.

In total, the system processed approximately 42,000 incorrect duplicate losing wagers in Nevada through December 2021, as well as 13,000 duplicate winning bets, an internal investigation from William Hill found. The inadvertently victorious wagers resulted in patron winnings of approximately $2 million, according to William Hill.

The Nevada Gaming Commission approved a $100K fine against William Hill for violations stemming from deficiencies with the book's CBS Race and Sportsbook System. Since 2015, WH's legacy system processed around 42K erroneous duplicate losing wagers in Nevada. pic.twitter.com/jL9EdQHpfd

— Matt Rybaltowski (@MattRybaltowski) September 22, 2022

The settlement resolved a complaint against several parties, most notably William Hill U.S. Holdco Inc. and William Hill Nevada II, the manufacturer of the CBS wagering system. Caesars Entertainment completed a $4 billion acquisition of William Hill’s U.S. division in April 2021, several months after announcing the proposed deal in October 2020.

In outlining the underlying causes of the wagering system’s flaws, the settlement represents multiple areas that Caesars found to be insufficient, said Jeffrey Hendricks, who serves as assistant general counsel of regulatory and compliance at Caesars Entertainment.

“That is not the standard we set operationally. That is not the standard we set from a compliance perspective,” Hendricks told the commission.

Peak traffic, erroneous duplicates

At some point around June 2021, William Hill determined that it needed to correct the flaw in the CBS wagering system after the operator received several patron complaints, according to the NGCB. While the subsequent investigation did not determine the root cause of the issue, the company indicated that the system was most susceptible to accidentally booking duplicate wagers at periods of peak traffic.

The issue arose when a customer attempted to place a bet on his mobile app, then subsequently placed an identical wager on the same event, with the same odds, for the same dollar amount within a period of 60 seconds from the original wager, William Hill’s internal investigation determined.

In peak traffic times, William Hill claimed the system would come under a heavy load, causing a succession of wagers to back up. Unnerved by the long processing time, an impatient bettor could attempt to place a bet, leave the app before the wager was fully processed, then return to the app to place an identical wager.

3 Sportsbooks making big moves.

FanDuel is now running fully on its own tech stack under the Flutter umbrella.

DraftKings has migrated 11 out of 12 states onto its SBTech platform.

CZR relaunched the Caesars Sportsbook on the Liberty platform acquired with William Hill

— PhillyGodfather ® Sports Bettor (@phillygodfather) August 17, 2021

For instance, if a bettor placed a $5 wager on a given event, the flaw resulted in a second identical bet of $5 to be deducted from the customer’s account, according to Hendricks. William Hill subsequently attempted to refund customers who inadvertently placed duplicate losing wagers in full, but has not been able to locate all of the customers, Hendricks added.

When asked by the commission how much of the $1.3 million in patron losses had been returned, Caesars responded that the company has not determined the exact amount. At the same time, William Hill did not void the duplicate winning bets.

Prior to the June 2021 patron complaints, when a William Hill bettor contacted the operator’s customer service team with allegations of a duplicate losing wager, the bettor was likely refunded the amount of the duplicate wager, according to the NGCB.

Slow to respond

When the system eventually stabilized, all of the wagers still in the queue — including the additional identical bets — would still be processed by the system, according to the complaint. While William Hill took remedial measures to address the issue, the NGCB found that the sportsbook operator did not fully identify the cause of the problem or mitigate the issue entirely.

Nevada Gaming Commissioner Ogbonna Brown pressed Hendricks on the timeline of the internal investigation. Although William Hill implemented a system patch in an attempt to correct the duplicate wager issue that June, the NGCB did not become aware of the deficiencies for another three months. The NGCB, according to the complaint, first learned of the issue in September from a customer who had a dispute with William Hill. Another month elapsed before William Hill began the internal investigation.

Commission OKs $100K fine for William Hill sportsbook https://t.co/UJBicRiFrE via @reviewjournal

— Rick Velotta (@RickVelotta) September 22, 2022

When the flaw was discovered, the NGCB was not immediately notified by the manufacturer of the system, Somps noted. William Hill Nevada II, the manufacturer, failed to notify the board within three business days of detecting the issue, pursuant to Nevada Gaming Commission regulation 14.260, Somps added.

Transition to Liberty tech platform

Last month, Caesars Entertainment EVP Eric Hession noted that it planned to convert all of Caesars’ branded apps and sportsbooks to the company’s Liberty tech stack by the end of the year.

When Caesars Entertainment rebranded its online sports betting division in August 2021, the company used the Liberty technology to power mobile sportsbook operations in eight states. Caesars is in the process of transitioning to Liberty, its in-house, integrated tech stack in several other jurisdictions, including Nevada.

The infractions at hand, according to an industry source, occurred on William Hill’s legacy tech stack that was in use by the company long before the 2021 acquisition.

Over the course of the investigation, Caesars was not able to identify every duplicate wager from the life cycle of the program dating back to 2015, Hendricks said. But he emphasized that Caesars worked as diligently as possible to keep the NGCB updated on the status of the investigation last fall. Still, Commissioner Steven B. Cohen criticized the respondents for a failure to report the matter in an expeditious fashion on numerous occasions.

Caesars expects to have all its digital sportsbooks on its new Liberty operating platform by the end of 2022, $CZR officials said during today's Q2 earnings call; Caesars online sportsbook is now live in 18 states and could launch in Massachusetts, Ohio and Kansas by early 2023.

— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) August 2, 2022

A separate investigation by William Hill determined that a ticket writer at the Red Garter Hotel & Casino in West Wendover, Nevada, made multiple unlawful wagers using money from his bank drawer. William Hill discovered a cash shortage of $3,350 at the location in April. The employee has been terminated and the matter has been referred to law enforcement, Caesars said Thursday.

William Hill admitted to each and every allegation set forth in the complaint in last month’s stipulation for settlement with the state. When reached by Sports Handle on Thursday, a Caesars Sportsbook spokesman declined comment.

ShareTweetShare
Matt Rybaltowski

Matt Rybaltowski

Matt is a veteran writer with a specific focus on the emerging sports gambling market. During Matt's two decade career in journalism, he has written for the New York Times, Forbes, The Guardian, Reuters and CBSSports.com among others. In his spare time, Matt is an avid reader, a weekend tennis player and a frequent embarrassment to the sport of running. Contact Matt at matt@usbets.com.

Related Posts

lebron james lakers
Features

Who Will Break LeBron James’ All-Time NBA Scoring Record?

February 1, 2023
Credit to: Jamie Germano - USA Today Sports
Promotions

Caesars Sportsbook Ohio Promo Code: HANDLENEWS1BET for Bengals at Chiefs

January 29, 2023
Load More

Top Stories

patrick mahomes

Mahomes’ Ankle Speculation Twists Line Movement In Chiefs-Bengals Rematch

January 27, 2023
fanatics-grand-opening

Fanatics Sportsbook At FedEx Field Offers Unique Retail Option In Maryland

January 23, 2023
Shutterstock

Missouri Legislators Lament Exodus Of Bettors To Neighboring States

January 27, 2023
rob gronkowski adam vinatieri

Rob Gronkowski Goes Training Montage Route In Latest FanDuel Spot

January 17, 2023

State Sports Betting Guides

Ohio (U.S. state) flag waving against clear blue sky, close up, isolated with clipping path mask alpha channel transparency, perfect for film, news, composition

Ohio Sports Betting – Where To Play, Bonus Offers And Promo Codes

by Brian Pempus
January 31, 2023

Downtown Detroit at twilight (Shutterstock)

Michigan Sports Betting – Where To Play, Online Sportsbooks, And FAQ

by Brett Smiley
February 1, 2023

VA captial

Virginia Sports Betting – Where To Play, Online Sportsbooks And Bonus Offers

by Brett Smiley
January 17, 2023

nj flag

New Jersey Sports Betting — Where To Play, Online Sportsbooks, And FAQ

by Brett Smiley
October 20, 2022

pa online sportsbooks

Pennsylvania Sports Betting – Where To Play, Online Sportsbooks And Bonuses

by Brett Smiley
October 6, 2022

Canada Sports Betting Guides

Canada Sports Betting – Best Sportsbook Apps & Bonus Offers

British Columbia Sports Betting – Legal Update, Available Sportsbooks, and FAQ

Ontario Sports Betting – Legal Status And Where To Play

gambling therapy
ncpg
igaming ontario
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL). Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (MI/NJ/OH/PA/WV), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (CO), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-888-532-3500 (VA) or call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN).
19+. Please play responsibly. Terms and conditions apply. 
Individuals must be 19 years of age or older to participate in igaming in Ontario. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. If you, or someone you know, has a gambling problem in Ontario and wants help, please visit ConnexOntario or call their helpline at 1-866-531-2600. Operators on this website operate pursuant to an Operating Agreement with iGaming Ontario.

Search Sports Handle

No Result
View All Result
  • About Us / Contact
  • Responsible Gambling

No Result
View All Result
  • US Sports Betting
    • Arizona
    • Arkansas
    • Colorado
    • Connecticut
    • Delaware
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Iowa
    • Kansas
    • Louisiana
    • Maine
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • Mississippi
    • New Jersey
    • New Mexico
    • New York
    • Ohio
    • Oregon
    • Pennsylvania
    • Tennessee
    • Virginia
    • West Virginia
    • Wyoming
  • Pending States
    • California
    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Missouri
    • North Carolina
  • Canada
    • Ontario
    • British Columbia
    • Alberta
  • Sportsbook Apps
    • FanDuel
    • BetMGM
    • Caesars
    • PointsBet
    • BetRivers
  • Tools
    • Sportsbook Bonuses Explained
    • Sports Betting Revenue Tracker
    • Sports Betting Podcasts
    • Partnership Tracker
    • Expected Value
    • Sports Scores And Odds Apps
    • Sports Betting Twitter
    • Guide To ‘Risk-Free’ Bets
  • News

loading

Please wait while you are redirected to the right page...

Please share your location to continue.

Check our help guide for more info.

share your location