Tennessee Sportsbook Online Betting

Tennessee Sportsbook Becomes First to be Suspended in US

By Blake Roberts Founder & Editor in Chief Updated: 22 March 2021

Blake Roberts Founder & Editor in Chief

Blake Roberts is the founder of Betting.US and is currently heading the creative team as Editor in Chief. Born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Blake is a great sports fan, with football and basketball being his favorite. He’s our trusted voice for all betting-related matters.

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It has been announced that a Tennessee sportsbook has become the first online sportsbook to ever be suspended in the United States.

The recipient of the dubious honor is Action 24/7, which at the end of last year was celebrating being the only local sportsbook operator at the time to be taken on when online sports betting was legalized in the state.

Regulators decided to suspend the operator’s license toward the end of last week after there were reports of money laundering and credit card fraud, among other things. The allegations were actually self-reported following an investigation, and regulators have now declared that the suspension will remain in place indefinitely.

Independent Proof of Internal Controls

At a meeting held at the end of last week, officials from the Tennessee Education Lottery Sports Advisory Council confirmed the suspension was in place. They also stated that in order to consider reinstating the license, they would need to see independent proof that the operator has adequate internal controls in place.

Until that is achieved, the sportsbook will no longer be online. Just a few months ago, the operator was very excited about being selected for a license alongside big name operators such as FanDuel and DraftKings. This is the first time that an online sportsbook in the USA has had its license suspended.

Dustin Gouker, the lead analyst for Play USA, said:

Tennessee’s sportsbooks are thriving, which makes news like this particularly unwelcome for anyone who has a stake in the success of regulated sports betting. If all these allegations are true, Tennessee regulators can’t let the status quo at Action 24/7 continue.

In the meantime, the website for the sportsbook operator simply states that it is unavailable at present. On the day that the decision was made to suspend the license, the operator put out a social media message stating that its site was unavailable due to maintenance.

Email Received by Inspector for Regulator

According to reports, an inspector for the regulator, Danny DiRienzo, was sent an email by an Action 24/7 employee detailing a list of incidents, relating to a number of player accounts. DiRienzo later stated that he only had to look at a few of these accounts to determine that there was a huge issue involving illegal activity.

The activities were discovered by the operator earlier in the month, but it was a week later before they were reported to the regulator. After this, meetings were held where it was decided that the license would have to be suspended pending further investigation and independent checks on the control the operator has in place to stop this sort of activity.

The operator was, however, praised for picking up on the illegal activities quickly and dealing with it efficiently. It is also claimed that the operator has already taken steps to put some controls into place, and no further illegal activity has occurred since they did this.

Once the regulator is happy that proper controls are in place and have been verified, the operator may be able to rejoin the ranks of Tennessee’s online sportsbook market.