BetMGM hit with a $100K penalty in Pennsylvania

• BetMGM has been targeted in an enforcement move in Pennsylvania
• The PGCB said that four individual fraudulent gambling rings were identified
• These rings wagered more than $2,000,000 acorss hundreds of accounts created in the names of people whose identities were fraudulently obtained or stolen

BetMGM has been fined in the state of Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) and will have to pay a $100,000 fine.

The regulator found the operator to have had insufficient safeguards in place against fraudulent behavior. Breaches of state gambling regulation were registered on the company’s Borgata and BetMGM platforms, the PGCB noted.

According to the regulator, the company did not have sufficient KYC protocols in place, and allowed the creation of multiple accounts by people who used the personal information of other people.

The accounts that used such information also had used payment devices that were stolen or fraudulently obtained. There were four individual fraudulent rings identified with these rings operating over multiple years, and wagering close to $2,007,000.

The largest fraudulent ring identified by the regulator operated for 29 months since November 2023 and created 119 accounts, which used personal information of other individuals, pushing the total amount wagered to $895,092.

Three other instances of such rings were also identified. The second-largest ring operated for 19 months through December 2023 and created 304 accounts, wagering a total of $867,910.

Another ring, which ran for 25 months through January 2024, created 1,567 accounts and saw as much as $229,580 wagered. The smallest ring was the one that actually ran the longest - for 34 months through November 2024.

It registered 34 accounts and saw a total of $14,598 spent on sports gambling.

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