Nevada regulators are about to make it easier and quicker for the state’s sportsbooks to cancel wagers and not pay out winners if technical issues mistakenly allow gamblers to bet after a game starts.
Under existing regulations, sportsbooks aren’t allowed to rescind bets on their own; they must seek approval from the Nevada Gaming Control Board chair to void past-posted bets.
In 2020 in a high-profile incident, regulators approved BetMGM’s voiding more than $200,000 in parlay bets made on the operator’s mobile app and Bellagio kiosks on baseball games in China and Korea that had already started in the early-morning hours.
On Wednesday, the Gaming Control Board will consider making a recommendation to the Nevada Gaming Commission on required reporting when a sports pool or racebook accepts a wager on an event whose outcome has already been determined and to clarify when approval from the Board chair is necessary to rescind a wager.
Nevada Senior Deputy Attorney General John Michela said the proposed regulation requires reporting to the Board, but doesn’t require approval of the chair if the rescission is covered by the book’s house rules.
Operators won’t be able to impose “any unreasonable rules regarding the rescission of wagers,” since chair approval is required of a sportsbook’s adoption or amendment of its house rules, Michela said. Operators would be required to report post-posting incidents within one week after acceptance.
The new rules would go into effect Sept. 1 under what was proposed at a previous Gaming Board workshop.
Board Chair Kirk Hendrick said the rules date back to 1989 and that “the world of sports wagering has changed a lot” since then. “The speed of transactions and the possibility of mistakes” are much higher today. He said he’s never denied a request by operators to void sports bets.
“The regulation was forcing the licensee to come before the Gaming Control Board chair and say this happened,” Hendrick said. “We review them very fast, but it still takes a couple of days and the world, with electronic wagering and accounts, is moving very fast. We want to be sure we’re keeping up and not creating a burden on licensees or the patrons who wonder how this works.”
Hendrick said sportsbooks are required to have approved house rules, one of which is that past-posing is not an accepted wager. Thus, there’s no reason for them to go through the process of seeking his approval.
“That was the intent back to 1989,” Hendrick said, adding that no one envisioned the technology used in sports wagering today.
Marc Rubenstein, legal counsel representing Station Casinos, applauded the changes during the Board workshop.
“We’re very pleased with what seems to be the purpose and intent of these regulations,” Rubenstein said. “We have no objection to the direction these are headed.”
In June 2022, Red Rock Resorts and its Station Casinos paid an $80,000 fine to the state for technical glitches in its system that accepted past-posted sports wagers.
Rubenstein said his concern with the initial proposal was the requirement that “all details” be reported within seven days. An operator might risk a violation by leaving out a minor detail, while its investigation is underway.
“We have no objection to reporting or being obligated to investigate to the best of our ability. But we want it to be reasonable in terms of what we’re capable of — time, manner, and work product — before we report it to the Board.”
Those issues were being worked out after the workshop and ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.
