Caesars issued with $60k Iowa penalty over credit card gambling breach
Hawkeye State regulator investigation finds 485 transactions worth $212k were placed on American Wagering sportsbook
Caesars has been issued with a $60,000 penalty by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission (IGRC) for illegally allowing the use of credit cards on its sportsbook site.
The sportsbook operator, licensed in the state under its American Wagering brand, was found to have processed more than 485 transactions derived from credit cards in 2020 and 2021, worth an estimated $212,000.
In Iowa, credit cards cannot be used to fund any form of gambling in the state, be it online or via retail. The fine was agreed as part of the IGRC’s regular meeting, which took place on Thursday 25, August.
In an interview with Radio Iowa, IGRC director of gaming, Brian Ohorilko expanded on the breaches discovered.
“There was a specific incident in July of 2021, where it was discovered that there were a number of transactions that took place using a credit card. And so it was discovered at that time, a full audit was completed,” Ohorilko explained.
“Throughout certain periods in 2020, 2021, prepaid debit cards were purchased using a credit card and a number of those transactions were permitted and in went through,” he added.
The fine is the second in the space of a month issued to an operator for credit card related offences, with FanDuel fined $75,000 earlier this month over two separate counts of allowing credit card gambling.
The first count related to FanDuel’s technology provider, Sightline, allowing deposits in the system via a credit card. Sightline failed to properly restrict credit transactions due to incorrect coding in their system.
IGRC staff contacted FanDuel after being made aware of a potential issue. FanDuel conducted an audit and determined they had accepted 2,551 credit card transactions amounting to approximately $459,000 over a one-year time frame.
In the second count, FanDuel self-reported another failure in the coding of credit card transactions, and another transaction occurred in the amount of $46.
Speaking about the fines, Ohiorilko called on operators to take better care when processing transactions to ensure that they do not breach Iowa statutes.
“We’ve heard some positive things from the different operators that have had problems and that they are taking steps to not only correct the action — but to develop procedures to audit these types of things — so that they’re doing their own self checks,” Ohorilko says.
Elsewhere, PointsBet was issued with a $25,000 penalty for three counts of violating Iowa state gambling laws.
Offences included taking 25 wagers totalling $666 on events involving underage participants and failing to supply audit information to state regulators within required timeframes.