Pennsylvania’s Live! Casino and Hotel in Philadelphia Hit With $100K Fine

Pennsylvania’s Live! Casino and Hotel in Philadelphia has been fined $100,000 for accepting and placing sports wagers by phone. In June 2022, staff at the property, which is owned by Stadium Casino RE, LLC, an affiliate of The Cordish Companies, accepted and placed 15 bets worth $287,421 over an eight-day period for a patron who was not present at the casino and hotel.

Three Live! Casino and Hotel employees in Philadelphia accepted and placed more than $287,000 in wagers by phone

According to Play Philadelphia, an employee of the casino received a text on a personal phone to place three wagers up to $95,000. Two of which were $37,500 and the other was $20,000. Two other casino workers were involved.

The individual who texted the Live! Casino Philadelphia employee said he’d be in later that evening to pay the bets. All three bets lost, and as a result, the gambler never paid the balance.

Three employees involved in the incident were fired and had their gaming employment license revoked by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB).

“This is not the culture of our organization. We have a culture of compliance and training,” said Craig Clark, Live! Casino EVP and general manager.

“These are obviously violations of the gaming regulations and our training procedures. We apologize for this occurrence.”

Furthermore, the PGCB said “proxy-wagers” are not permitted.

“In addition, the Pennsylvania Gaming Act specifically prohibits knowingly accepting a wager from any person other than the person making the wager,” the PGCB added.

Gambler involved in the bets was placed on the PGCB’s Involuntary Exclusion list

The gambler involved in the bets was placed on the regulator’s Involuntary Exclusion list and can no longer place wagers at licensed operators in Pennsylvania.

Additionally, the PGCB has placed 11 people on the exclusion list — all of whom were found to be fraudulent. The regulator said the people involved used a “fraudulent scheme” to create an iGaming account in another person’s name and identity.

The patrons also “used fraud to facilitate the placement of funds into their iGaming account and, without engaging in any gaming activity, managed to have funds withdrawn from their iGaming accounts directly into their own bank account,” the PGCB said.

Personal phones, including smartwatches, are banned from the sportsbook areas for Live! Casino Philadelphia employees. The casino provides workers with company-issued phones to communicate and fulfill requests.

All Live! Casino Philadelphia employees are each required to acknowledge a “read and sign” memo. This rule was implemented to help prevent proxy wagering in the future.