Las Vegas Casinos Lose Quarter Million Dollars Due to Error Allowing Post-Start Bets

The error, called "past-posting," allowed bettors to place bets on games that had already begun

Las Vegas Gambling
A social distancing sign is posted as The Fountains of Bellagio launch for the first time since the resort closed on March 17 because of the coronavirus.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Anyone who has had problems confusing time zones will likely relate to this massive failure from MGM Resorts in Las Vegas. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, casinos in the city lost nearly a quarter of a million dollars after they accidentally allowed bets to be placed on events that had already started.

The events in question were baseball games in China and Korea, which started at 1 and 2 a.m. local time, according to an ESPN report from earlier this week. However, self-serve kiosks at the Bellagio hotel allowed bets on the games up until 3 a.m., allowing bettors to use their knowledge of how the games were going to influence winning bets.

The biggest of the bets, and the biggest source of hardship for the casinos, came from a 10-leg parlay for $250; it ended up paying a whopping $137,107.38 after all ten bets were correct, therefore fulfilling the parlay.

Due to the discrepancy between the start time and the bet time, there is a dispute ongoing for the bets. According to the Associated Press, the Nevada Gaming Control Board will be investigating, as they do any dispute over $500. Considering this is way over that paltry sum, expect them to be heavily involved in settling the situation.

In all, there were nearly 50 bets made between 1:30 and 3 a.m. local time on the games already in progress, which is what allowed bettors to win as much as they did. This error, known as past-posting, is not unique to Vegas history, and can happen for a variety of reasons, from computer errors to human lapses. In this case, it was a “manual entry error” that opened the casinos up to the massive loss, perhaps the biggest in Las Vegas history for past-posted bets.

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Read the full story at Las Vegas Review-Journal

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