SportsBet being fined $2.5 million in penalties and forced to refund customers another $1.2 million after breaching Australia’s spam laws

With SportsBet being fined $2.5 million in penalties and forced to refund customers another $1.2 million after breaching Australia’s spam laws, the Alliance for Gambling Reform has today called for further action. 

Tim Costello, the Chief Advocate for the Alliance said “Sending over 150,000 texts and emails to over 37,000 individuals who had tried to unsubscribe is inexcusable. The risk for emotional and financial harm is unthinkably high.

“A corporation of SportsBet’s size and scale has no excuses for such abhorrent behaviour. Robust systems should be in place to prevent this kind of incidence from occurring.

“At the end of the day though this is just the cost of doing business for them. They’ll wear this fine because they know that their dangerous products designed to addict will continue to make them more money than they could ever be fined under current legislation.

“It’s high time we took this seriously and made the penalties proportionate to their profit margins and the harm they cause. The fines have to hurt if we want this predatory behaviour to stop.”