Email snafu costs Sportsbet over $300,000

Wagering giant Sportsbet has been fined $313,140 by the Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission for breaching its licence, after a failure to produce activity statements for a large number of its customers over an 18-month period.

The issue saw Sportsbet fail to issue more than 50,000 activity statements between July 2022 and May 2024, in contravention of condition 16 of its licence, in that it didn’t comply with the 2019 Responsible Service of Online Gambling Code.

The breach, which was self-reported by Sportsbet in September 2024, occurred on 18 separate months across the period and was viewed as 18 breaches by the NTWRC.

It received a fine of 102 penalty units, a 40 per cent reduction on the maximum penalty available, with $115,668 levied for the seven months in the 2022/23 financial year and $197,472 for the 11 months in 2023/24.

Sportsbet reported the issue was due to technical problems surrounding the delivery of emails to 6131 accounts. 

One issue involved activity statements being sent to old email addresses, while Sportsbet also had bounce-back emails quarantined by the company’s management system.

In all, 3021 customers did not receive 13 or more activity statements, 1294 did not receive seven to 12 statements, 1378 did not receive two to six statements and 438 did not receive one statement.

The director of racing and wagering conducted an investigation into the issue, which was completed in December 2024 before being sent to Sportsbet for its response.

The Commission found that the actions could have been seen as over 50,000 individual contraventions; however, the RWA provides that where two or more contraventions arise out of the same set of circumstances, it may be dealt with as one offence.

“The Commission, with the principle of proportionality in mind, has determined to treat each individual contravention of the 2019 Code that occurred in the same month as one contravention,” it found.

“The Commission has determined it appropriate to treat each of the 18 individual monthly contraventions as separate contraventions to more accurately reflect the ongoing nature of the offending.”

The penalty was then determined, weighing Sportsbet’s self-reporting of its conduct, the time taken to implement remedial action, the multiple contraventions arising from the same set of circumstances, and the fact that activity statements remained always available online.

Sportsbet had submitted that the contraventions should all be grouped under one breach but that was rejected.

“The failure to provide monthly activity statements occurred on 18 separate occasions over an extended period, each representing a distinct and recurring failure to comply with a core consumer protection requirement,” the Commission said.

“The ongoing nature of the contraventions demonstrates a systemic failure in the Licensee’s governance and assurance framework. Treating these repeated failures as a single contravention would not accurately reflect the duration or seriousness of the non-compliance, nor the potential cumulative impact on affected customers.”

Since August 2024, Sportsbet has updated its communication systems to ensure activity statements are delivered to all customers monthly.