In 2022, Australian bookmaker Robbie Waterhouse, husband of horse trainer Gai Waterhouse, was accused of offering gambling inducements to a RobWaterhouse.com client who had requested for their betting account to be closed for good. This led to a legal battle that would, as was made clear during a hearing held on Monday, last around two years. As reported by The Daily Mail, magistrate Gemma Slack-Smith will reveal the verdict later this year, on November 15th.
If found guilty, Mr Waterhouse will be penalised for having breached New South Wales’ gambling laws 11 times, with the first five violations having to do with encouraging a bettor to continue gambling despite them being a punter who had reached out to support with a request to permanently shut down their account. Mr Waterhouse has also been accused of accepting the bets of the said punter after they had already expressed they wished to .
This case serves as the second time Mr Waterhouse has got in trouble with regulators for potentially violating the gambling laws of New South Wales. In 2021, he was convicted of advertising a prohibited inducement and was thus fined AU$4,500. This occurred merely a year after Robbie Waterhouse expanded operations to the online betting sphere.
Waterhouse Pleaded Not Guilty
According to the allegations, Robbie Waterhouse did respond to the client by deactivating their account. However, this did not fulfil their request in full, as they had actually wished for their account to be shut down permanently. Moreover, the bookmaker had allegedly proceeded to give the client the opportunity to take advantage of matched deposits of up to AU$1,000. Another offer, made by a RobWaterhouse.com representative, had come in the form of a $100 bonus bet.
Mr Waterhouse did not plead guilty to any of the charges, and his defence mainly hinged on a chat log involving a RobWaterhouse.com support representative and the customer in question. According to Rob Ranken, Mr Waterhouse’s lawyer, the chat log revealed the client had actually requested a no-deposit bonus and, upon being rejected, had proceeded to threaten that they would move to another bookmaker unless they received the bonus. The representative had also drawn attention to the customer’s account being closed but had assured the user that an AU$1,000 bonus would be issued if they reinstated the account.
Mr Waterhouse’s alleged transgressions, if deemed true, will result in the bookmaker being mandated to pay a fine of AU$121,000. While large, the figure is admittedly smaller than the sum another bookmaker, Sportsbet, had to hand over to the NSW in 2021 for similar offences.
Liquor and Gaming NSW issued a fine of AU$135,000 to Sportsbet after it was determined that the betting operator had breached the state’s gambling advertising laws. According to Liquor and Gaming NSW, Sportsbet had emailed promotions to clients who had expressed no longer wishing to receive such ads. Sportsbet had also advertised illegal inducements on social media. The following year, Sportsbet was hit with another penalty, this time issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), except that case resulted in Sportsbet being handed a staggering AU$3.7 million fine.
- Author
Daniel Williams
