Liquor & Gaming New South Wales announced on Tuesday that Playup Interactive, a fantasy sports betting operator, has been handed a fine of over AU$580,000 in Downing Centre Local Court for offering illegal bonuses to consumers.
In New South Wales, wagering companies are prohibited from advertising promotional offers to individuals who do not have betting accounts, especially when the bonuses are advertised in an effort to convince them to open an account. Promotions encouraging an existing client to keep an existing wagering account open are considered illegal as well, as are referral bonuses. NSW’s gambling regulator has also banned companies from requesting that clients consent to receiving gambling ads.
One breach of the above rules can cost a gambling operator up to AU$110,000 in financial penalties. In total, 33 advertisements on Playup Interactive’s website were found to be in violation of NSW’s gambling regulations, and both the quantity and seriousness of the offences led to the final AU$586,000 figure.
Dimitri Argeres, Director of Compliance & Enforcement at Liquor & Gaming NSW, said betting service providers were responsible for ensuring that their NSW businesses were not offering illegal promotions in the state. He also assured that Liquor & Gaming NSW would continue its zero-tolerance approach to the handling of such offences.
Gambling Ads in NSW and Australia
While Playup Interactive’s financial penalties set a record, Liquor & Gaming NSW has previously issued substantial fines to other companies for similar transgressions. Last spring, the regulator fined betting operator Betr AU$210,000 for offences that, too, had to do with the promotion of inducements. At the time, that was the highest-ever penalty a company had been required to pay to the NSW regulator for bonus-related offences. According to Liquor & Gaming NSW, Betr launched TV and radio ads in 2022 that promoted enhanced odds of 100-1 and 20-1 on the Melbourne Cup and other events. The promotions were part of the bookie’s launch. Ultimately, the said offers were considered promotion of inducements for the sake of convincing consumers to create a betting account and were thus illicit.
The year 2023 also saw SportChamps, a repeat offer, plead guilty to the offence of advertising illegally on social media. SportChamps’ current list of transgressions shows a pattern of non-compliance, as the operator was handed yet another fine (AU$17,500) in January 2024 for offering free bets to NSW residents.
Adverts promoting online gambling have been a controversial topic in Australia as of late. For now, it appears the government wishes to proceed with a cap on how many ads can be aired per hour. A ban on airing gambling ads during children’s shows is also planned, as is a measure that will see adverts prohibited prior to and after a live sports game.
While some have argued the aforementioned partial bans would be the correct approach, others believe the harm betting ads pose warrants a blanket ban on a national scale. In fact, polls have shown most Australians are in favour of gambling ads being banned outright, and many politicians and healthcare experts have been calling for the total ban proposed in the Murphy Report to be implemented. On Wednesday, President Professor of the Australian Medical Association Steve Robson stressed that “anything less than a comprehensive ban on online gambling advertising will do nothing to protect Australians falling into the grips of gambling addiction.”
- Author
Daniel Williams
