Caesars Fined for Reaching Out to Self-Excluded Gamblers

The Press of Atlantic City reported yesterday that the online gambling branch of the igaming giant Caesars Entertainment has been fined $10,000 for trying to reach out to people who willingly excluded themselves from Internet gambling in the state of New Jersey. Caesars sent out hundreds of mailers containing promotional materials in an attempt to bring the self-excluded gamblers back into the fold.

According to Kerry Langan, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, this is the first fine of this sort to be imposed on a gambling operator since the return of Internet gambling to New Jersey in November of 2013.

The self-exclusion list serves primarily one purpose – to enable compulsive gamblers to ban themselves from accessing any type of gambling with a certain operator, land-based or online. What Caesars has done at first glance appears to be targeting those most vulnerable. Their mailer reached 250 self-excluded gamblers in the period between February 16 and May 28.

Seth Palansky, Vice President of Communications for Caesars, accepted the responsibility on behalf of the company, explaining that the materials were not sent on purpose and that there was no malicious intent. In his words, a back-end software issue caused an error which, in turn, resulted in the failure to properly clean the database before sending out the mailers.

The fine of $10,000 is a drop in the sea to Caesars, and in all likelihood, the mailer was sent out by mistake. The potential consequences in terms of reputation would probably be far worse than the potential gain (not to mention possible lawsuits). But there is something else to consider: the state regulators do not seem willing to overlook any of the shenanigans the casinos may come up with and those wanting to maintain their online operating license will have to play by the rules.

Then again, the amount really seems small for such a big operation and feels more like a slap on the wrist. Perhaps there is some leniency considering that the possibility of an error is really high here and also it being the first case of its kind. But it certainly looks like the online rooms will have to "behave" in order to be able to continue offering their services.