Massachusetts gaming regulators this week denied an attempt by DraftKings to void $934,000 in winning bets.
The company argued that a technical error allowed a customer to make 27 parlay wagers on Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes’ hit total in the American League Championship Series. The bettor parlayed Lukes getting eight or more hits during the series with lower hit totals at inflated odds, with a total stake of $12,950 on the wagers.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission stated that DraftKings should have stopped the bets before they were placed.
“It’s the cost of doing business,” Commissioner Nakisha Skinner said. “You have to be diligent in your offerings … this is an obvious error for DraftKings. The in-house controls should have caught this error.”
Multiple Hit Total Parlays
The bets were placed on Oct. 15. The error reportedly came from Lukes being labeled as a “non-participant” rather than a “player.” DraftKings officials said that scenario bypassed safeguards against parlaying correlated selections from the same market.
The bettor was then able to place a parlay based on multiple hit totals involving lower thresholds all the way up to eight hits. Additionally, the bettor included an unrelated money-line leg as part of each parlay, such as the Kansas City Chiefs beating the Las Vegas Raiders on Oct. 19.
Lukes ultimately appeared in all seven games of the series and had nine hits. The bettor won on 24 of 27 parlays. DraftKings uncovered the error on Oct. 16 and removed the markets.
DraftKings is the largest of seven online sportsbooks in the Bay State. In November, they reported a total handle of $475.8 million, more than half of the total market share.
DraftKings Says Bets Are Unfair Advantage
The company didn’t pay the winnings and notified the MGC of the error. DraftKings then submitted a request to the MGC on Oct. 29 to void the lesser legs in the parlay while paying the remaining legs. The bettor would have received around $95,000 under that proposal.
The company’s legal director, Pete Harrington, argued that the issue was a matter of fairness for other bettors.
“There are patrons who, across jurisdictions, bet this market honestly by just selecting eight-plus hits and obtaining lesser odds for doing so,” Harrington told commissioners. “This patron was able to obtain higher odds with no additional risk, which is somewhat fundamentally unfair to other patrons.”
Harrington also noted that repeat betting and betting on markets with obvious errors violate the platform’s rules. He said the customer made similar bets in New Jersey, where the DraftKings platform experienced the same error.
Some on the commission disagreed that there was an obvious error. They said the bettor simply took advantage of what was available.
“I am still in the camp I have been in all along when we drafted this reg,” Commissioner Eileen O’Brien said. “An obvious error to me is a factual and legal impossibility. I don’t believe this is an obvious error. I think this was an advantage to the patron that he took.”
The world of sports betting has seen some interesting, similar scenarios over the years. In 2023, the Nevada Gaming Control Board claimed that Station Casinos accepted 348 bets on completed events from May 2018 through May 2021. According to the complaint, the company admitted it was true and attributed the mistake to an error in the software.
