High5Games Charged With 1,065 Criminal Counts of Conducting Illegal Gambling in Connecticut

The state of Connecticut has suspended the gaming license of gaming service provider High5Games.   The company operates as a sweepstakes casino and advertises heavily, mostly over the radio.

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The Department of Consumer Protection revealed Friday that 1,100 Connecticut customers made deposits and gambled on the service provider’s unlicensed platform.

In what may be the first case of its kind in the United States regulated iGaming market, the DCP said that High5Games, which was licensed to operate in the state as a service provider that develops and provides online slot content for legal gaming platforms, also illegally operated unlicensed online casino High5Casino.

A number of states, including New York and New Jersey, have begun to crack down on sweepstakes casinos in recent weeks.  Connecticut also began looking into abolishing these sites last month.

The Department of Consumer Protection, the body in charge of gaming regulation in Connecticut, introduced SB 1235 in the state Senate’s full Committee on General Law, rather than being sponsored by a single legislator.

The language of that bill reads:

To (1) prohibit lottery ticket resales and ticket courier services, (2) modify the Commissioner of Consumer Protection's disciplinary authority concerning certain gaming licensees, (3) require vendor and affiliate licensees to provide books and records, (4) define and redefine certain terms concerning gaming, (5) modify provisions concerning wagers on sporting events involving Connecticut intercollegiate teams, (6) restrict who may review certain criminal history records checks, (7) prohibit certain advertising, (8) authorize certain bets and wagers on boxing and mixed martial arts, (9) provide that certain persons conducting sweepstakes or promotional drawings shall not allow or facilitate participation in certain real or simulated online casino gaming or sports wagering, (10) provide that any person who engages in professional gambling shall be guilty of a class D felony, and (11) repeal a provision authorizing the commissioner to appoint a director to perform delegated functions.

“High5Games took advantage of their credential to mislead consumers into believing they were participating in gaming on a legal platform when, in fact, they were breaking the law,” DCP Commissioner Bryan T. Cafferelli said in a news release.

The DCP said “911 customers lost a total of $937,938, and 108 were individuals who had signed up for the Voluntary Self-Exclusion List. Customers on the Voluntary Self-Exclusion List lost nearly $300,000 on the platform.”

According to the state's website, self-exclusion allows an individual to request to be excluded from legalized gaming activities in the state.