Australian wagering company ReadyBet has been found to have repeatedly breached national gambling laws by sending promotional messages to individuals registered with the country’s self-exclusion system, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said in a report released this week.
This prompted the agency to issue the Victorian-licensed bookmaker with a remedial direction after the company marketed to customers who had registered with BetStop – the National Self-Exclusion Register.
The investigation found ReadyBet sent 273 marketing messages between August and December 2023 to electronic addresses linked to people who had signed up to BetStop, the national self-exclusion register designed to shield vulnerable Australians from gambling harm.
Under the remedial direction, ReadyBet must commission an independent review of its marketing systems, including its use of third-party suppliers.
ReadyBet must also engage a provider to deliver training to its staff to avoid messages being sent to self-excluded individuals, and the ACMA may seek civil penalties if ReadyBet does not comply with the remedial direction.
Under federal law, registered individuals are meant to be excluded from all licensed interactive wagering promotions. The ACMA concluded that ReadyBet either knowingly or recklessly contacted those individuals, in what it described as “unjustifiable risks” that violated civil penalty provisions of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001.
“These are not technical oversights,” the authority said. “They represent systemic failures in ReadyBet’s internal controls to comply with legal consumer protections.”
Systemic failings
The ACMA’s probe detailed a series of lapses, including failure to update marketing lists in time, manual processing errors, and delays in checking customer status against the self-exclusion register. In one case, the regulator found that a staff member filtered marketing lists using the wrong column — resulting in 85 messages being sent on December 21 to individuals clearly flagged as self-excluded.
On another occasion, a push notification promoting betting odds for a Cricket World Cup match was sent to 159 self-excluded users through the ReadyBet mobile app.
Despite prior warnings from the ACMA in September and October, the company continued to contact individuals on the register, the report said. “ReadyBet was aware of the risks… but failed to take timely and effective action,” it added.
The company was also found to have failed in its obligation to promote the BetStop service in electronic messages — a legal requirement under the register rules. While its SMS marketing complied by including links to webpages with the relevant information, 2,342 app push notifications sent in October omitted any reference to the service.
By law, licensed wagering providers must include information about BetStop in their messages to ensure that consumers are aware of how to opt out of gambling platforms.
Launched in August 2023, BetStop was introduced as a centralised tool allowing individuals to ban themselves from all licensed online betting services in Australia. The register forms part of a broader push by the federal government to strengthen protections around digital wagering, including mandatory pre-verification of customer identity and deposit limit tools.
Consumer advocates have long called for stricter enforcement of industry obligations, warning that online gambling poses a growing risk to public health.
The ACMA has not yet announced if penalties will be issued against ReadyBet, but the agency said enforcement actions remain under consideration. Civil penalties for violations can reach up to 180 units per offence.
ReadyBet has not issued a public response to the findings.
