What Happens to Unclaimed Sportsbook Accounts?

When the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018, it opened up the floodgates for legal sports betting in the United States. The ensuing few years saw a dramatic increase in the number of sports bettors as well as a rise in the number of sportsbooks. The pay per head industry has made it possible for virtually anyone to run their own sportsbook.

With so many bettors and so many sportsbooks out there, it brings up a valid question. What happens to the money in a “dead” sportsbook account? It’s sad to say, but there are some out there who have sportsbook accounts and pass away. Others may simply forget they have an account at a certain sportsbook. So what happens to the funds in those accounts?

The answer will vary. 

Unclaimed Property

There are vast amounts of unclaimed property all over the U.S. There is so much that you may see advertisements for companies that will help you find unclaimed property that may belong to you. There are websites where you can go and check to see if you have any unclaimed property. Believe it or not, unclaimed property is a $15 billion business.

Say you grew up in New York. College took you out of state and you eventually wound up in South Carolina. As a teen, you had a bank account at your local bank. As your travels took you away from that local bank, you established new bank accounts and forgot about the one you had as a kid. It still belongs to you whether the account had $5 or $5,000 in it. It’s actually the same with a sportsbook account.

Unclaimed Sportsbook Accounts

With so many different sportsbooks in the industry, there are a variety of different rules regarding dormant accounts. Some sportsbooks only wait 180 days before they claim an unused account as “dead.” Other sportsbooks will wait up to a year and there are some that will wait as many as three years. 

Some sportsbooks charge fees to keep an account open. In those cases, of course, the money will eventually run out. For those that do not charge fees – the majority of sportsbooks – that means there is a bunch of money out there going unclaimed. What happens to that money depends upon the state in which the “business” was transacted. If a person has passed away, there is also the person’s estate to deal with.

State Legislation & Unclaimed Property

What happens to dead sportsbook accounts with funds in them varies by state law. Just as with each state enacting its own sports betting legislation, each individual state is responsible for how it handles unclaimed sportsbook accounts. Each state is different and the concept is so new that some states have nothing on the books yet.

In New Jersey, which was one of the first states to legalize after PASPA, a sportsbook account is considered dormant if there has been no login activity or the settlement of any wagers for one year. At that point, the sportsbook must provide notice to the account holder that funds (over $1.00) from the account will be removed. 

Kentucky just legalized betting in September of this year. The state also put into place rules that deal with dormant sportsbook accounts. Any accounts with no log-in activity for three years will be considered dormant. These accounts may be closed and the sportsbooks will issue any funds – minus processing fees – to the account holder’s last-known address. 

In most states, any unclaimed property, including cash, is remitted to the state treasury. Each state treasury has an unclaimed property division where people can search to see if they might own any of it. Through the years, it’s likely that some old sportsbook accounts end up in state treasuries.