Home FanDuel fined $350,000 by Ontario regulator over failure to report suspicious betting

FanDuel fined $350,000 by Ontario regulator over failure to report suspicious betting

FanDuel has been hit with a CAD 350,000 ($252,000) penalty from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). The fine comes as the Canadian arm of the sports gambling giant failed to tackle match fixing and “suspicious betting.”

The AGCO found that between October 23 and November 30, 2024, 144 bets were placed via FanDuel that stemmed from three Ontario player accounts. The watchdog claims that these 144 bets matched up with signs of match fixing.

Despite being obligated to alert AGCO to this, FanDuel allowed the bets to go through. Signs included a specific focus on two athletes, with bets being placed on them losing, “an implausible and near perfect win-rate”, as well as reported “clear links” to suspicious activity on the accounts placing the bets. This includes synchronised betting.

FanDuel could have reportedly avoided the fine if it had reported it to the Independent Integrity Monitors (IIM). Now, FanDuel is described as “furious” by the New York Post, who spoke with a company spokesperson on the matter: “FanDuel has developed an industry-leading sports integrity monitoring program that pairs advanced technology and real-time monitoring with an experienced and dedicated risk and trading team to identify and investigate suspicious activity in conjunction with leagues, independent integrity monitoring groups, regulatory bodies, and law enforcement.”

AGCO fine prompts Ontario police to investigate match fixing

Originally, the story broke via ESPN, which also spoke with a FanDuel spokesperson. They described themselves as “disappointed” in AGCO’s decision, which has a 15-day time limit to be appealed.

Following AGCO’s fine, the Ontario Provincial Police have launched their own investigation into the matter. Speaking with ESPN, Chief Superintendent Craig Abrams said: “The OPP will thoroughly investigate this matter to determine whether any criminal offences were committed in relation to the 144 bets made from the three Ontario bettor accounts.

“This is an active and ongoing investigation. The OPP will not speculate on the outcome while an investigation is underway.”

ReadWrite has reached out to FanDuel for comment.

Featured image: AGCO / FanDuel

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Joel Loynds
Freelance Journalist

Joel Loynd’s obsession with uncovering bad games and even worse hardware so you don’t have to has led him on this path. Since the age of six, he’s been poking at awful games and oddities from his ever-expanding Steam library. He’s been writing about video games since 2008, writing for sites such as WePC and PC Guide, as well as covering gaming for Scan Computers, More recently Joel was Dexerto’s E-Commerce and Deputy Tech Editor, delving deep into the exploding handheld market and covering the weird and wonderful world of the latest tech.