The New Jersey sportsbooks are going through a lot – including several penalties that were issued to two of them.

Penalties for DraftKings and Rush Street Interactive:

At the end of October, David Rebuck, the Director of Division Gaming Enforcement, issued penalties against DraftKings Sportsbook and Rush Street Interactive, the company that owns the popular BetRivers Sportsbook. 

DraftKings has to pay a fine of $7,500, while Rush Street has to pay a smaller amount of $2,000.

DraftKings Sportsbook NJ got its first fine in the state because it was noticed that the self-excluded person was able to create a new account and place the bets on it. The fine was issued on October 24, after the complaint was filed in August. 

As AP News reports, the fine for Rush Street was issued on October 25. The events that the company held from March 2020 and April 17, 2020, until January 19, 2021, as well as on July 18, 2021, and September 18, the same year, didn’t comply with the rules the regulatory body issued for unapproved events. 

According to the regulations, all sports pool operators are required to meet the requirements, including the lounge having “sufficient square footage to promote optimum security of the facility.” 

The space has to have full security and surveillance equipment, which Rush Street didn’t have. Also, there was the matter of the internal controls. All pool operators are required to file all of the necessary details of the internal controls for all of the parts of their operations.

Before the operation starts, the regulatory body has to approve the controls. Also, Rush Street was taking pre-match bets related to the games that had already started.

Forfeitures in Atlantic City:

On top of that, five casinos from Atlantic City, as well as the famous horse racing track, are deprived of more than $77,000 that was won by minors who placed the bets, as well as by self-excluded individuals. Most of the individuals failed to provide identification or provided inadequate information, and their winnings were taken until they provided their rights to gamble. After the period of six months expired, the money was taken, and they were banned.

According to Play NJ, the money was also seized from people from the self-excluded people who were placing the bets.

The money will be used to help compulsive gambling and to help disabled citizens, as well as seniors.

The biggest amount of money was seized from Resorts – more than $51.000. The Ocean Casino Resort gave more than $7,500, and Bally’s forfeited more than $5,600. On top of that, more than $4.400 was seized from Freehold Raceway, $4,200 from the Golden Nugget, and almost $900 from Harrah’s.

However, these fines and forfeitures didn’t affect the casinos and racing tracks much since their profit is much bigger than the money taken – in total, they earned more than $4.2 billion only in the first nine months of 2023.