Betr Slammed with a Fine for Promoting to an Excluded Player

Betr, a sports betting operator focusing on micro bets, has been fined in Australia. As reported by ABC News, the gambling company breached the local rules by incentivizing a self-excluded gambler to play.

The player in question simply referred to as “Mr M,” was contacted by betr prior to the Melbourne Cup race. The problem, however, is that at the time Mr M had excluded himself from gambling. Yet, betr still phoned Mr M as if he was not excluded and offered him to open a betting account.

Under Northern Territory gambling rules, allowing an excluded player to play is an offense, which is why the Northern Territory Racing Commission fined the sportsbook. Betr was slammed with a fine of $13,946 (converted to USD) for its transgression.

This all happened in October, around which time Betr was also being probed in NSW over alleged promotion breaches. Notably, Betr contacted Mr M shortly after the latter had excluded himself from gambling.

As shared by the Northern Territory Racing Commission, Betr had received the full list of self-excluded people in the Northern Territory on October 5, meaning that it had a way to know that Mr M was excluded. However, it turned out that the representatives who contacted Mr M were not familiar with the latest release of the self-exclusion register.

Betr claimed that its agents had Mr M’s details from “their previous employment.” After this case, the gambling agency ordered its workers to double-check that a person is not self-excluded before contacting them about gambling products.

A National Register Is Needed

The case caused people to question whether the current self-exclusion schemes are effective enough.

The Mr M case was immediately pointed out by the opponents of the gambling industry, who believe that a nationwide self-exclusion system is needed. Australia announced its intentions to implement such a scheme three years ago but is yet to make it happen. This, in turn, attracted the critiques of anti-gambling activists.

Carol Bennett, Alliance for Gambling Reform’s chief executive officer, slammed the government for not making the implementation of national safe exclusion a priority. She noted that such a scheme should be “the bare minimum” for keeping at-risk gamblers safe.

Bennet claimed that a stronger national register would lower gambling harm rates. She also insisted that the federal government should address the issue by introducing a nationwide exclusion scheme as the first step.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which is responsible for the national register, said that the scheme, called BetStop, would launch in the next months. The ACMA is already testing its security levels to make sure that customers’ data will be safe and that the register will be effective.