Sportsbet slapped with A$2.5m fine over spam failings
Flutter Entertainment-owned brand found guilty of breaking Spam Act 2003 and sending more than 160,000 promotional messages to customers
Sportsbet has been fined more than A$2.5m (£1.3m) after breaking spam laws in Australia which saw the operator send more than 160,000 promotional texts and emails to customers.
The Flutter Entertainment-owned brand was found guilty of sending 161,946 commercial electronic messages without prior consent from customers between 1 January 2020 and 29 March 2021.
The fine is the largest penalty issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for breaching spam laws.
The ACMA had been made aware of issues relating to the spam messages and began an investigation into the operator.
The authority found the messages sent by Sportsbet contained marketing materials promoting the brand and that the operator did not have the prior consent of those who received the messages to be sent the materials.
The investigation also found that Sportsbet did not display an adequate unsubscribe facility within the messages and that some unsubscribe requests from customers were not actioned.
The ACMA said: “Sportsbet did not demonstrate that it had adequate systems, processes and practices in place at the time of the alleged contraventions.”
The ACMA fined the operator A$2,508,600 with Sportsbet set to repay customers who gambled after receiving the messages a further A$1.2m.
Sportsbet has also agreed to appoint an independent figure to oversee refunds and monitor its compliance with anti-spam laws.
Nerida O’Loughlin, ACMA chair, said: “The ACMA contacted Sportsbet on several occasions leading up to the investigation to let the gambling provider know it may have compliance problems and it failed to take adequate action.
“Sportsbet is a large and sophisticated company which should have robust systems in place to comply with spam laws and protect the interests of its customers,” she added.
Sportsbet said: “Sportsbet accepts the ACMA’s findings and apologises to customers who were affected by this issue.The non-compliance resulted from technical and systems failures that regrettably meant not all customer unsubscribe requests were actioned in a timely manner.
“Sportsbet suspended all email marketing for several months and implemented extensive system upgrades to ensure that all unsubscribe requests are now correctly actioned.
“Sportsbet takes these matters extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring that past failings are not repeated.”