Bellagio Faces Largest Las Vegas Sportsbooks Loss

Published: 06/07/2020

Reading Time: 4 Min

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Notable Las Vegas casino Bellagio is reportedly making a huge mistake with regards to the recent return of a major sports league. The casino allowed more than a quarter-million dollars in bets on baseball games even if the games have already started.

Reports claim that more than 50 of these so-called “past-post” bets have been placed. These bets were made on the currently ongoing Korean and Chinese baseball games. Initial investigations revealed that the mistake may have been made because of human error. The casino reiterated that their system was in no way jeopardized and that the fault was on the human side.

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Human error

According to reports, the bets were placed in between 1:30am and 3:00am. However, the games that these were placed on started around 1am. and 2am. Internal investigations revealed that nearly all of these past-post bets were placed on self-serve kiosks which are located inside the casino.

One of the bettors was able to win more than $131,000 on a $250 10-leg parlay. The exact number of bettors that participated is still unknown. This is perhaps one of the largest losses in Las Vegas sportsbook history.

Due to the massive amount of money involved in these bets, the Nevada Gaming Control Board is launching an investigation in order to determine whether the bookmakers are liable to pay these bets. Moreover, there are hints that the incident was coordinated by multiple individuals or organizations.

In a statement, Westgate sportsbook director John Murray said:

“It’s happened to all of us. I think every sportsbook probably since the beginning of time has dealt with this at some points.”

Past-post bets are a fairly common occurrence in the sports betting and gambling community. However, this is the first time that such huge amount of money was involved. These past-post bets usually occur when sportsbooks employees erroneously enter the start times of a particular game or they committed a typo.

Time zone confusion

Some claims that for bets placed on games being played outside of the United States, in this case in China and Korea, confusions about time zones can often occur. The difference in time zones often causes these confusion which ultimately results into these past-post bets.

The penalty for past-post bets are fairly lenient. Most sportsbook allow the bettor to claim their winnings on the condition that they will be permanently ban from the casino. Some casinos allow the bettor to forfeit their earnings and have the freedom to access the casino any time.

However, on incidents that involve huge sums of money, sportsbook operators usually turn to the Gaming Control Board. The board usually investigates dispute when the money involved is more than $500. The board usually issues a ruling on these issues which all casino and sportsbook operators must abide.

Industry experts have noted that once the issue reaches the gaming control board they usually side with the bettors. With regards to the Bellagio incident, the casino said that they have brought the issue to the gaming control board and that they are now awaiting for the ruling.