The Nevada Gaming Commission recently fined Station Casinos Inc. and its parent company, Red Rock Resorts, $80,000 for allowing its sportsbook app to take wagers after events had taken place.
Under terms of the settlement, Station did not confirm or deny the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s (NGCB) allegations. The 2-count, 13-page complaint originally was filed in September.
Station officials acknowledged they did not properly maintain virtual servers, and that a lack of computer memory allowed computer software to continue taking bets after events began. However, the officials said the software, provided by Las Vegas-based Stadium Technology Group LLC’s Stadium Live program and certified by regulators, contained a defect.
Station officials also said gamblers should not have attempted to bet on games that were already in progress. According to Senior Deputy Attorney General John Michela, the company took 35 wagers on five events on which the outcome was already determined on June 1, 2018. On January 9, 2019, the system took 116 wagers on events that had been concluded. And on March 7, 2019 another 30 bets were taken on three concluded events.
On August 29, 2019, regulators sent Station an order to show cause why disciplinary measures should not be imposed against the company. Station replied in September and October. On December 2, 2019, the board said it would not initiate disciplinary action if Station would implement “redundant monitoring processes to ensure it does not accept money or its equivalent ostensibly as a wager upon an event whose outcome has already been determined, including for wagering events administered by third-party wagering programs.”
Meanwhile, Station tracked down all illegal bets, nullified the wagers and returned bets back to all players.
Company officials believed they’d solved the problem by setting up alarm systems to notify them when servers reached 85 percent of server capacity. However, the problems consisted, including two more incidents of past-posting wagers. That resulted in a complaint and a stipulation of settlement signed on June 10.
Station attorney Marc Rubenstein said the company is in the process of getting a new vendor for its sports app, adding the company is moving away from the Stadium Live system “as quickly as they can.”
NGCB Chairman Brin Gibson said Station’s new software is in the testing phase. He said Station likely will use its current vendor for at least one and a half more years. He also stated regulators were satisfied the company was making a significant financial investment in a new system and moving as fast as possible to solve the problem.
