The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario fined Score Media and Gaming Inc., the operator of theScore Bet, this week for showing a bettor two cash-out offers that it allegedly never paid.
The AGCO said in a press release on Tuesday, Oct. 6, that a user was unable to redeem either of the cash-out offers that operator presented for a multi-leg parlay bet.
The provincial gaming regulator fined PENN Entertainment-owned theScore Bet $200,000, the largest financial penalty it can levy for a single breach of its iGaming standards.
The case involves a $1,000 multi-leg parlay placed on March 14, 2025, on NHL, NBA, and NCAA basketball games played that day. If every leg won, the ticket would have paid more than $1m.
According to the release, with one leg left, theScore allegedly offered the player a cash-out of about $380,000. The player accepted right away, but the app’s automated verification allegedly rejected the transaction after the odds moved. Four minutes later, theScore allegedly presented a second cash-out offer of almost $100,000. The player again accepted and it again failed to complete.
The final leg lost and the player won nothing, according to the AGCO.
theScore Bet presented unachievable cash-out values
The Registrar found that neither offer “was achievable as presented to the player.”
That violates the Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming, which stipulate that information shown to players before and during play cannot “mislead players or misrepresent games, including by describing outcomes, prizes or features that are not achievable.”
The AGCO made clear that an offer shown on screen counts as a promise to the player, whether or not the operator’s own systems reject it afterward.
“By imposing the maximum monetary penalty available, we are sending a clear message that these expectations are not optional,” AGCO CEO and Registrar Karin Schnarr said.
The AGCO said its action is “separate from any other avenues available to players to seek resolution of individual disputes.” The regulator is punishing how the cash-out was presented. It is not ordering theScore Bet to pay the bettor. The AGCO did not confirm whether the user was reimbursed.
theScore Bet has 15 days to ask for a hearing before the Licence Appeal Tribunal. The operator did not respond to a request for comment as of the time of publishing.
This is theScore Bet’s second AGCO penalty in 12 months.
In October 2025, the regulator fined the operator $105,000 for failing to address a user’s high-risk gambling despite “clear red flags.” That player wagered about $2.5m and lost about $230,000 over eight months.
AGCO is a busy regulator
The newest fine for theScore Bet is the latest penalty in a busy stretch of enforcement against licensed iGaming operators and suppliers for the AGCO. It is the fourth penalty against an iGaming registrant since early August, following:
- Betty Gaming, $120,000 in August: Age-verification failures let 23 people under Ontario’s legal gambling age of 19 open accounts on the slots-focused site, and nine of them placed bets.
- Booming Games, $70,000 in August: The supplier’s slot titles offered a prohibited auto-play feature to Ontario players for several months.
- NorthStar Gaming, $80,000 in August: The operator failed to apply anti-money laundering controls to a high-risk player.
Several larger actions came before that run:
- FanDuel, a record $350,000 in January: The operator failed to identify or report suspicious betting and match-fixing involving Czech table tennis.
- PointsBet Canada, five-day suspension in February: The operator allegedly failed to flag betting on now-banned NBA player Jontay Porter. PointsBet has appealed that punishment, which is unprecedented in Ontario iGaming.
- Relax Gaming and Arrise Solutions, $40,000 each in May: Their games appeared on unlicensed sites available to Ontario players.
The AGCO began strong enforcement almost as soon as the market opened in April 2022.
BetMGM and PointsBet were fined for advertising inducements in May 2022, and DraftKings and since-exited Unibet followed later that year. Early fines were mostly about advertising and unapproved games. Now they cover responsible gambling, sports integrity, anti-money laundering controls and, with theScore, how operators present live betting products.
