All State Regulators on Board With Voiding Bets at BarStool Sportsbook

Penn National requested that Massachusetts regulators allow the voiding of a few hundred live prop bets on the Week 2 game between the New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals game citing a glitch in their software.

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Massachusetts regulators supported Penn National in this matter but made it somewhat clear they might not be as sympathetic in the future. 

“It’s at their discretion whether they want to offer these kinds of bets, but If we have another request of this kind before us, I don’t know that I’ll be sympathetic,” said Nakisha Skinner, a commissioner at the MGC.

Penn National's Barstool Sportsbook is set to become ESPN Bet, which could present a more serious problem should the iconic sports brand become mixed up in a gambling controversy.

Legal Sports Report (LSR) has thus far gathered all responses from regulators in states where Barstool Sports currently operates.  Only Maryland and Massachusetts provided actual numbers.

• In Massachusetts, 257 wagers totaling $47,760 across 59 accounts were impacted.
• In Maryland, 468 bets across 113 accounts were impacted.

And the others:

• Regulators in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania pointed to rules that allow sportsbooks to void bets when obvious errors occur.
• Regulators in Arizona, Illinois, Maryland and Tennessee said they are aware of the situation but offered no further comment.
• New Jersey is currently weighing a request from Penn to void wagers.

Penn National uses software provided by Kambi, which is also the software provider for Rush Street Interactive, among others.  Kambi might not be to blame, however.  Instead, Penn National is blaming its odds provider, Swish Analytics. 

Most of the U.S. states require software platforms to be in compliance.  An error of this nature happening once is not good.  Should it occur again - we say it WILL, not necessarily with this particular provider - regulators will surely need to act. 

For its part LSR reached out to those gamblers affected after they were said to have wagered on an event decided well in advance of bets being placed.  Quite a few of these bets were initially graded as wins.

LSR reviewed one private text chat dedicated to exposing pricing anomalies at sportsbooks.  This particular individual claimed to have lost $32,000 in voided wagers but assumed that would happen based on what he was reading on larger Discord groups.

- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com