Australia’s largest provider of sports betting and gambling services Tabcorp faces new charges for regulatory violations in Victoria, the state’s gambling regulator revealed today. According to the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC), the betting giant is facing charges on as many as 57 offences after enabling an underage individual to place wagers at multiple Tabcorp-operated locations. The AXN-listed company allegedly allowed a 16-year-old person to gamble at its pubs on thirty different occasions in 2022.
The Victorian regulator confirmed today the company has been charged with 27 counts of underaged gambling, among other compliance failings. The minor in question was able to place multiple wagers in various Tabcorp locations between May and September last year despite being under the legal gambling age, which is 18 years old in the state. The Brunswick Club, the Doncaster Hotel, the Thistle Hotel, the Olympic Hotel, the Preston Hotel, Rose Shamrock, the Albion Charles Hotel, and the Edwards Lake Hotel were among the venues the underage gambler had played at.
They now face combined fines to the amount of AU$1 million for permitting the minor within their gaming machine areas without exercising due diligence and ensuring adequate supervision of their gambling machines. Tabcorp itself could suffer monetary sanctions up to a maximum of AU$698,998 for violations of its gambling licence in Victoria. Annette Kimmitt, Chief Executive Officer of the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission, described underage gambling as one of the most serious offences a betting company could possibly commit.
VGCCC Started Investigating the Matter After Receiving Complaint in May
Kimmitt stressed that licensees are required to ensure they never take wagers from underage players. Floor personnel must always request identification documents upon suspecting a given customer is underage, she insisted. The regulatory body started investigating the matter after receiving a complaint from a private citizen in May. At the time when the complaint was submitted, the Preston Hotel, in particular, was facing 15 charges, each of which had six counts of permitting underage gambling and three charges of allowing a person below 18 to access its gaming machine area.
Tabcorp has been plagued by sanctions for compliance failings in recent years. The company was recently hit with an AU$1-million fine after the Victorian gambling regulator ruled out it had failed to comply with its directions during an investigation into a system outage that occurred during the Spring Racing Carnival back in 2020. This is the biggest fine issued to date by the Victorian gambling watchdog.
In 2017, the gambling giant was also forced to pay $45 million in penalties to the Australian Transaction Report and Analysis Centre, the financial intelligence body that monitors for money laundering, tax fraud, and other finance-related crimes. The financial regulator established at the time that the company had failed to comply with multiple anti-money laundering policies. This was one of the largest financial sanctions issued against a corporation in the country’s history.
- Author
Daniel Williams
