A technical glitch with Barstool Sportsbook’s odds provider Swish Analytics resulted in 257 wagers amounting to almost $48,000 being placed in Massachusetts long after the markets on these bets closed.
All of the wagers involved Sunday’s game where the New York Giants rallied against the Arizona Cardinals. As Penn Sports Interactive explained to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, a software update created a glitch that left 10 market types and 14 market names open long past the game’s kickoff.
In Massachusetts, the commission has to approve vetoes of wagers, so from Sunday through Thursday, many Barstool Sportsbook accounts were suspended while pending a ruling from the commissioners. Sports Betting Director for the MGC Bruce Band noted they received five or six customer complaints about the unresolved wagers.
Once the MGC commissioners learned that a new tech update would roll out Thursday correcting the issue, they approved the request to void all the wagers. Commissioner Nakisha Skinner noted that, while she approved it this time, she would be more discerning in approvals in the future.
Per the filings with MGC, Penn said there was an unusually high uptick in betting volume during the afternoon games on the Sunday slate, resulting in the error going undetected until hours later.
Per reporting by The Action Network, this issue has not been confined to just Massachusetts. The outlet spoke with bettors in several states and confirmed over 500 wagers were placed in Colorado.
Most sports betting markets have rules in place allowing sportsbooks to void wagers on palpable errors. If it is obvious that the market was offered in error, as was the case here when the markets were on a game that was already over, the sportsbook is typically not liable to pay out the wager in most states.
While Massachusetts requires approval to void the wagers other states, such as Indiana, allow sportsbooks to void wagers without regulatory approval.
