Caesars in New York crosshairs over sportsbook failings despite early lead
Reports suggest authorities unhappy with sportsbook product issues following Empire State debut
Caesars Sportsbook is reportedly under fire from authorities in New York following a mixed debut of its sportsbook offering in the Empire State.
The debutant licensee, which launched in New York on January 8, was the subject of multiple outages during its debut weekend.
Well New York, looks like we killed Caesars. ? pic.twitter.com/n7UnBsb4mA
— John (@Whatupbird1) January 9, 2022
Caesars Sportsbook has been down now for a good chunk of the Saturday *and* Sunday slates in New York
Worst debut in this state since Jake Fromm
— Jeremy Layton (@JeremyLayt0n) January 9, 2022
This app is a terrible failure. Will be withdrawing everything ASAP.
I'm going with Fan Duel exclusively. It's been great all day.
— Hindsight2022 (@2022HomeOffice) January 9, 2022
It is understood these initial issues have continued over the following two weeks of operation, with bettors experiencing delays in withdrawals being processed, as well as events not being graded and shown in account balances in a timely fashion.
Reports in the US claim the operator’s customer service team could not handle the volume of complaints received from bettors and was eventually disabled, leading to delays in customer enquiries being resolved.
Using mostly the $300 bonus money, I had some winning bets and parlays. But initially, I could not withdraw my money because I didn't meet Caesars' $300 threshold (based on the bonus).
— Robert Harding (@RobertHarding) January 20, 2022
Other queries received concerned the operators initial sign-up bonus of $300 and the firm’s $3,000 deposit matching.
Customers withdrawing funds derived from the matched bet and free bet amount were subject to a requirement to place bets totalling the amount they received from the bonuses at least once within 30 calendar days.
Bets placed at odds greater than -300 were not included in the required play-through amount.
In a number of issues reported, bettors trying to withdraw funds found they had not met the thresholds, while others who were trying to withdraw own funds could not do so.
In a statement provided to ESPN, Caesars said: “Our customers are of the utmost importance to us and we apologize for any inconvenience they’ve experienced since our launch in the Empire State.
“New Yorkers have tremendous passion for sports and the state operates on an unprecedented scale all its own. That scale has exposed issues in our platform and we’ve made numerous updates every day since launch to improve the customer experience.
“Additionally, we are continuing to increase our customer-service capacity to ensure we can respond more quickly.
“We’re committed to the State of New York for the long haul and want to assure every customer that we appreciate their feedback and are working to rectify these issues as quickly as we can,” Caesars added.
In comments reported by ESPN concerning Caesars, New York State Sen. Joseph Addabbo suggested he had received multiple complaints from disadvantaged bettors, complaints which the senator labelled as “disappointing and disheartening”.
Addabbo suggested his office and the New York State Gaming Commission would intervene if delays in servicing bettors persist.
“This is Caesars Sportsbook, this is not some mom-and-pop operation that opened up yesterday,” Addabbo said.
“We see the commercials, we know that Caesars has some success in the industry. It’s not a rookie here.
“Communication would alleviate a lot of the frustration,” Addabbo added.
Despite the outages and issues encountered by bettors, Caesars has springboarded to the top of the revenue rankings in New York, according to latest data provided by the New York State Gaming Commission.
Caesars had the most lucrative promotions for Empire State bettors, something which has manifested in the state rankings for the first fortnight since market launch.