The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) Jan. 8 announced the biggest fine issued to a sports betting operator in Canada since the federal government decriminalized single-event wagering in August 2021. Writing that FanDuel “fail[ed] to appropriately identify and report unusual and suspicious betting and match-fixing activity,” the AGCO issued a CA$350,000 (US $251,571) penalty — the third biggest in North America since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018.
FanDuel has 15 days from Jan. 8 to appeal the penalty, but has not yet done so. According to the AGCO, no gambling operator has appealed a penalty since platforms went live in Ontario in April 2022. The agency, however, also oversees alcohol, marijuana, and horse racing, and over time, licensees from those industries have appealed AGCO penalties with varying results.
Ontario so far is the only Canadian province to allow commercial single-event wagering, making the AGCO the pioneer in regulation. Myriad U.S.-based operators, including BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, and FanDuel are live in the province, and in some cases, Ontario is the only non-U.S. jurisdiction in which they operate, meaning there is the potential for cultural or language differences.
In the U.S., the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in July 2025 issued a $450,000 fine to DraftKings for allowing credit card funds to be used for wagering in Massachusetts. It is the biggest penalty issued to a wagering platform across North America. The Ohio Casino Control Commission in November 2024 issued the second biggest fine, also to DraftKings — $425,000 for taking individual player prop bets on college athletes.
The Ohio, Ontario, and Massachusetts numbers are eye-popping. And in all cases, there is far more to the fine than just the six figures.
Czech table tennis previously flagged
Per the AGCO press release, FanDuel allowed 144 bets from three player accounts on Czech Table Tennis Star Series matches between Oct. 23-Nov. 30, 2024. Neither the AGCO nor FanDuel provided a list of dates for the bets or the total amount wagered. The bets, the AGCO wrote, should have raised questions immediately — meaning in October, rather than in late November when FanDuel identified the issue. Because of that, the AGCO wrote FanDuel “failed to meet its obligations to identify the unusual and suspicious activity, respond to those activities and report them.”
FanDuel takes issue with this statement. As soon as the company identified suspicious activity in late November, it says it reported concerns to the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) within 24 hours. The company immediately opened an investigation and four days later reported to the AGCO that it had identified suspicious activity going back to late October.
Per its press release, the AGCO contends that FanDuel should have been able to identify the suspicious activity as early as the first day it occurred, and points out that the Star Series had previously been flagged for integrity concerns. IBIA, in its third-quarter 2025 Integrity Report, highlighted 22 table tennis alerts, including seven in Czechia, for a league that has thousands of matches per year.
In an interview with InGame last Wednesday, AGCO COO Dave Phillips reiterated that the agency believes FanDuel should have identified and acted on the violations sooner.
“Our standards create an obligation on sportsbook operators to be monitoring in real time to find violations,” Phillips said. “When it comes to taking action against insider information, time is absolutely of the essence. If there is a failure to identify activity in a timely fashion, it can affect other stakeholders, including law enforcement, sportsbooks, integrity monitors, and regulators.
“Our sense is that there were clear signs and multiple red flags, abrupt shifts in betting lines, activity, heavy concentrations of betting on two athletes to lose their matches, implausible win rates, and strong signs of synchronization in betting, and we believe it should have been detected earlier.”
FanDuel, like all other state- and provincial-licensed sportsbooks, has robust integrity monitoring systems in place. The company is partnered with integrity monitor IC360, is a member of IBIA, gets official league data from Genius Sports and Sportradar, and conducts its own in-house monitoring. A FanDuel representative told InGame that when the company identified suspicious activity in late November, it had “conducted a careful investigation, and through detailed analysis identified earlier suspicious activity, and then reported the results to the AGCO.”
“FanDuel has developed an industry leading sports integrity monitoring program that pairs advanced technology and real-time monitoring with an experienced and dedicated risk and trading team to identify and investigate suspicious activity in conjunction with leagues, independent integrity monitoring groups, regulatory bodies, and law enforcement,” a FanDuel spokesperson said. “As an operator that prides itself on the trust we have built with our stakeholders, we do not feel that this action accurately reflects the commitment and investment we have consistently demonstrated regarding protecting the industry, our customers, and the integrity of sport.”
Penalty may have unintended consequence
Sportsbook operators are active participants in uncovering illegal betting and suspicious activity. They have to be, because both ultimately harm their businesses. To that end, FanDuel and competitor DraftKings previously brought potential illegal betting activity around NBA and Major League Baseball games to the leagues and regulators. And in at least two cases, that information resulted in indictments of players suspected of betting on games. Former NBA player Jontay Porter is awaiting sentencing after both operators flagged suspicious activity that ultimately uncovered the trading of insider information used to wager.
The AGCO calls operators the “first line of defense in protecting the integrity of Ontario’s sports betting market and in supporting the fight against betting-related match fixing.” A FanDuel spokesperson agrees with that assessment. But despite self-reporting the suspicious activity to the IBIA and AGCO, the company feels that it is being penalized for uncovering and reporting additional information during its investigation.
“We also are concerned it could discourage the industry from engaging in best efforts to identify, investigate, and report on irregular activity,” a FanDuel spokesperson said.
Tribunal would make ‘independent decision’
The appeal window ends Friday. In the appeal process, an independent arbiter would either uphold the AGCO’s position or dismiss the case. But there is also room for discussion without making an appeal — an AGCO spokesperson explained that operators can revisit and potentially renegotiate with the AGCO.
Should FanDuel decide to appeal, the issue would be sent to an independent tribunal for review. Phillips said that appeals from alcohol, marijuana, and horse racing licensees or registrants sometimes end with the tribunal upholding the agency’s decision, and sometimes don’t. He stressed that the “adjudicator makes an independent decision.”
For now, the monetary penalty has been announced, but the AGCO cannot confirm whether it has formally shared with FanDuel other potential penalties or requirements. It is commonplace for the AGCO (or any regulator) to work with operators following an enforcement action to help improve compliance programs and address issues that may have contributed to non-compliance. Phillips said that the regulator is constantly in touch with all of its licensees and registrants in an effort to maintain integrity.
However things play out, the size of the fine seems unusual for a first-time offender. FanDuel has not previously been investigated for rules violations in Ontario. And the regulator has not issued a fine of more than CA$150,000 to any other sports betting operator since it launched wagering in April 2022.
The next biggest fines were a CA$150,000 fine to PointsBet for violating responsible gaming regulations in November 2023, a CA$110,000 fine to BetMGM for marketing violations in March 2025, a CA$105,000 fine to theScore Bet in October 2025 for failing to “address a patron’s high-risk gambling,” and a CA$105,000 fine to DraftKings for advertising violations in June 2022.
In MA, there were repeated violations
In Massachusetts, when the regulator fined DraftKings $450,000, it did so after repeated violations of the state’s credit-card funding policy. It also came to light that the company initially misinterpreted the credit card rules, and then DraftKings reported failed attempts at multiple fixes. Some other states do allow credit-card funding, but DraftKings struggled to wall off those funds in universal wallets, so some credit-card funds were co-mingled with legal deposits in Massachusetts.
After the process, DraftKings banned credit-card funding to its platforms across the U.S.
While the fine was stunning, it was the result of multiple hearings, an ongoing investigation with public updates, and redundant violations of the same rule. In addition, DraftKings had been previously penalized by the MGC for other violations.
According to AGCO press releases, FanDuel has never been the subject another AGCO investigation.
How monetary penalty was determined
The monetary penalty that was announced, Phillips said, is not for a single violation. Rather, it is for multiple violations, each with its own fine. Phillips said that when imposing a fine, the AGCO works off a schedule provided by its board of directors. The schedule “gives us our starting points with respect to penalties … then we make the determination of the quantum of a penalty.” Phillips said the agency considers the “compliance history of the particular registrant, but also the seriousness of the violation, and the compliance posture of licensee/registrant.”
In this case, FanDuel was fined for two violations of s. 3.8(3) of the Canadian Gaming Act — specifically Standard 4.32 Requirements 1 and 1.13 Requirement 1 of the Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming. In this section, the standards clearly define unusual betting behavior, require operators to identify and report unusual or suspicious activity, and require a licensee to work with an integrity monitor.
The maximum penalty for each violation is CA$200,000, meaning that the AGCO did not issue the maximum fine.
However the monetary penalty was arrived at, the issuance of the fine and FanDuel’s interpretation that it is being penalized, in part, for uncovering additional information during an investigation seems to indicate some sort of disconnect between the regulator and the operator.
“While we are disappointed with the decision made by the AGCO to issue this fine, we are unwavering in our commitment to working with them to identify areas of integrity concerns and protect sports from those who seek to undermine fair competition and the games we love,” a FanDuel spokesperson told InGame.
The AGCO would agree — integrity, Phillips said, is at the heart of the mission.
“For us at the AGCO, our overriding priority here is that sportsbooks in Ontario are not compromised by fixers and insiders, and that we participate in a global fight against match fixing,” Phillips said. “Operators are the first line of defense. Real-time information from their books [is crucial] … and we’ve had lot of success stories where this system has worked very well.”
It appears that the endgame for the regulator and operator are aligned. But how to get there and communicate may need some realigning.
