Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA rules)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAccording to ACMA, 45 customer accounts remained open for 190 days or more, including many who had registered to self-exclude from online and telephone betting on BetStop’s first day. While none were able to place bets during their self-exclusion period, the accounts should have been closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unibet also provided betting services to 45 customers <\/strong>after their NSER registration ended via old accounts that should have been closed. The ACMA said one of these customers made over 1,200 bets.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAccording to the IGA rules, once someone registers with the NSER, betting providers must close their account as soon as possible. If the person’s self-exclusion period ends and they wish to bet again, they must open a new account instead of using the old one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ACMA member and gambling lead Carolyn Lidgerwood <\/strong>said: “Our investigation found very serious breaches by Unibet over a sustained period of time. Taking in some cases 190 days to close accounts is clearly unacceptable and does not reflect the decisions made by Unibet customers to seek support to help them not gamble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n“The NSER rules are also there to ensure that people are making a clear and deliberate choice to recommence gambling. That is not the case if they can simply access old accounts. We recognise that no bets were made from these Unibet accounts or marketing sent while customers were self-excluded. However, this outcome puts the industry on notice that they must comply with the rules or face potential financial penalties and other actions available to the ACMA under the IGA.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ACMA has accepted a two-year commitment from Unibet to review its compliance systems and improve them. The company has also agreed to issue refunds to affected customers who accessed accounts that should have been closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week ago, the ACMA fined PointsBet<\/strong>\u00a0AU$500,800 (US$320,512) over a series of promotional emails.\u00a0ACMA said that between September and November 2023, the company sent\u00a0705 emails<\/strong>\u00a0without an\u00a0unsubscribe function<\/strong>. PointsBet wrongly classified the emails as \u201cnon-commercial\u201d although they promoted gambling services and fell under spam rules. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIt also sent\u00a0seven marketing emails<\/strong>\u00a0without the recipients\u2019 consent and\u00a090 commercial texts<\/strong>\u00a0without clear sender contact information. Between August and September 2023, the online gambling provider broke rules related to\u00a0BetStop, by delaying the closure of customer accounts and sending\u00a0508 marketing messages<\/strong>\u00a0to self-excluded people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Unibet operator has been fined AU$1.01m for failing to close the accounts of 954 customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":777027485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has levied a AU$1.01m fine against Betchoice, operator of Unibet, for systemic failures to close 954 customer accounts registered with the national self-exclusion register, BetStop. This contravened the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, with some accounts remaining open for over 190 days and others allowing post-exclusion betting via old accounts. Unibet has committed to compliance system improvements and customer refunds.","focusai_entities":"Betchoice, Unibet, Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), BetStop, PointsBet, Carolyn Lidgerwood","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.95), marketing_crm (0.85), investor_analyst (0.9), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Compliance System Review","query":"What specific enhancements to Unibet's compliance systems and governance frameworks will be implemented to prevent future contraventions of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 and NSER protocols, and what is the timeline for ACMA's review of these improvements?"},{"label":"Industry-Wide Impact","query":"Given ACMA's recent enforcement actions against both Unibet and PointsBet, what proactive measures are other licensed operators in Australia taking to audit their self-exclusion account management and marketing communication protocols to mitigate similar regulatory risks?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,24628,156,158],"tags":[6093,24373,1897],"class_list":["post-777026703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-highlight-of-the-week","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","tag-acma","tag-betstop","tag-igaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777026703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777026703"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777026703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777026725,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777026703\/revisions\/777026725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777027485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777026703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777026703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777026703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}