Dabble Sports fined AU$1,069,200 for BetStop breaches in Australia

Australian wagering operator Dabble Sports has been penalized AU$1,069,200 (US$760,265) after repeated failures to comply with BetStop, the country’s self-exclusion register. For PSPs and gambling operators, the case is a straight read on enforcement priorities: self-exclusion controls and outbound messaging are not “nice to have” compliance layers, they are monitored and fined.

1. On Wednesday, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said Dabble Sports failed to close 157 accounts belonging to customers who had enrolled in the self-exclusion programme.
2. ACMA also found that Dabble sent 839 electronic messages to 165 self-excluded individuals, plus 2,000 push notifications to 45 customers, without including the mandatory BetStop information.
3. The regulator said its investigation uncovered multiple breaches in account management and marketing controls. In one set of findings, 156 out of 229 accounts with no pending bets were still linked to BetStop users seven days after self-exclusion registration, and some accounts remained non-compliant for up to 200 days.
4. ACMA member Carolyn Lidgerwood called the breaches “serious” and said providers “must respect” self-exclusion decisions and “must have robust systems in place” to protect people who choose to exclude themselves.
5. Dabble Sports has agreed to a two-year court-enforceable undertaking, including an independent review of its compliance systems and a board-approved plan to implement changes with appropriate resources. ACMA also noted that Tabcorp Holdings Limited was fined more than AU$2.7 million earlier this year for telemarketing and spam breaches over a 16-month period, after sending more than 217,000 marketing emails and SMS messages in a 16-day window to customers who had unsubscribed.

BetStop is Australia’s self-exclusion register, and ACMA said it will be further promoted from January 2027 as part of a reform package to gambling laws. The practical message for high-risk businesses is simple: if your onboarding, CRM, and messaging stack cannot reliably sync with self-exclusion status, the regulator will eventually find out.