William Hill Fined $100,000 for Six-Year Duplicate Bets Issue

William Hill, a prominent bookmaker, has been fined $100,000 by the Nevada Gaming Commission for a six-year-long issue with duplicate bets. The problem, which stemmed from a flaw in the company’s CBS Race and Sports Book mobile wagering system, resulted in significant customer losses and erroneous payouts.

An internal investigation by William Hill between October and November 2021 revealed that 42,000 losing bets were duplicated, causing customers to lose $1.3 million. Additionally, roughly 13,000 erroneous duplicate winning bets occurred, with patrons being paid around $2 million. The glitch in the system would usually see a patron attempt to place a bet, be met by a “processing” message, and then try to place the same bet again when the original failed to go through.

William Hill, who were bought over by Caesars Entertainment in 2021 for $3.7 billion, eventually installed a “system patch” to fix the problem. However, Nevada gambling law states that operators must report any such issues to regulators within three days, something William Hill failed to do. The sportsbook writer theft incident in West Wendover wasn’t reported for a month after an audit discovered that $3,350 had been taken from a cash drawer. Jeffrey Hendricks, Caesars’ senior VP and assistant general counsel of regulatory and compliance told commissioners that the employee who took the money and used it to place bets was fired, and law enforcement notified.