Best Online Casino News Roundup: The Week’s Top Stories
Posted on: September 19, 2025, 09:55h.
Last updated on: September 19, 2025, 10:33h.
- South African glitch let players win without ever placing bets
- Jaguars staffer blew $22 million of team funds on FanDuel
- Regulators, fraudsters, and the IRS prove money never stays
Imagine playing an online casino game where you can’t lose and the wins just keep coming. This is exactly what happened to some South African players on the Instant Lucky 7 game at Hollywoodbets recently.
Dozens of players quickly realized the game was on the fritz and was allowing them to bet and win without deducting a stake from their accounts. The players were able to withdraw their winnings into their bank accounts before anyone at Hollywoodbets caught wind of what was going on
The operator sued, and a spoilsport judge ruled this week the players had to return the money – around $750K in total – because the bets weren’t valid. In fact, because of the absence of a stake, they weren’t “bets” at all.
FanDuel Pays Out
From players who literally couldn’t lose, to one who just couldn’t stop losing. Amit Patel was described in court documents as “the biggest loser ever on FanDuel.” To make matters worse, he wasn’t gambling with his own money – the $22 million he lost belonged to his then employer, the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. In March 2024, Patel was sentenced to 6½-years in a federal prison for fraud.
This week, it was reported that FanDuel had agreed to pay the Jags $5 million in compensation because the company wanted to keep things sweet with the NFL, its “official betting partner.”
As one wag wrote on Twitter, “the team will receive [the settlement] in the form of 250,000 $20 bonus bets, which expire in 30 days.”
Fraud and Taxes
Speaking of fraud, UK regulators fined online casino Lottomart £360K ($485K) this week for failing to guard against scams. According to the UK Gambling Commission, the site’s safeguards were so lax that one customer slipped past detection simply by swapping the order of their first and last names.
In other fraud news, the US Department of Justice wants to seize more than $5 million in Bitcoin, which it claims is the proceeds of SIM-swapping attacks. This is when criminals trick a mobile provider into transferring someone’s phone number to a new SIM card, giving them access to texts and calls. The DOJ alleges fraudsters laundered the funds through crypto casino accounts – including those connected to Stake.com – after stealing the money from victims’ crypto wallets.
The case highlights how unregulated crypto casinos can be used by criminals for nefarious purposes, a message echoed by the Internal Revenue Service this week, which also took the opportunity to remind Americans that they must pay taxes on winnings – whether they’re derived from regulated gambling sites or not.
Which just goes to show, whether it’s a South African judge, a SIM swapping fraudster, or the IRS, someone always finds a way to separate you from your winnings.
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