The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has penalised Tabcorp Holdings with a penalty in excess of AUS $4m for spamming VIP players. The operator was found to have sent over 5,700 marketing messages to its VIP programme customers.

According to a statement by the ACMA, an investigation found that, between 1 February 2024 and 1 May 2024, Tabcorp sent 2,538 SMS and WhatsApp messages to VIP customers without providing them with the ability to unsubscribe from the messages.

In addition, the operator also sent 3,148 SMS and WhatsApp messages which didn’t contain adequate sender information across the same period, while 11 SMS messages were sent without consent between 15 February and 29 April 2024.

Commenting on the violations, ACMA member Samantha Yorke noted that this was the first time the authority had discovered spam breaches concerning a gambling VIP programme.

“The gambling industry needs to understand that spam laws apply to all direct marketing – whether it’s generic campaigns or personalised messages,” Yorke said. 

“VIPs should not be confused with gambling ‘high-rollers’. These types of gambling VIP programs can involve customers who are not well off and are experiencing significant losses.

“It is utterly unacceptable that TAB did not have adequate spam compliance systems in place.” 

The ACMA stated that the Spam Act 2003 requires businesses to have consent before sending marketing messages, and those messages must feature a working unsubscribe option and the sender’s information.

“When people make choices to unsubscribe from a service, they must be able to do so easily and their decisions must be respected by companies,” Yorke added. 

Tabcorp has also entered into a three-year court-enforceable undertaking, which involves an independent review of its direct marketing systems, making improvements, quarterly audits of its VIP direct marketing, training staff and regular reports to the ACMA.

Yorke noted that the authority will be watching Tabcorp closely to make sure it complies with spam laws in the future.

Tabcorp isn’t the only operator the authority has penalised over the past few months for compliance violations.

Earlier in June, the ACMA took action against four operators – Buddybet, Ultrabet, VicBet and Topbet – for self-exclusion failures, as separate investigations found that all the operators failed in their duties towards players registered with the country’s national self-exclusion register, BetStop.

Back in May, the authority also handed significant penalties to PointsBet Australia and Unibet for compliance failures.

Over the last 18 months, the ACMA has penalised businesses over $16.9m for spam breaches.

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