Dabble Pays AU$1.07m After Marketing to 165 Australians Who Had Self-Excluded

The ACMA found the wagering app left 157 BetStop-registered accounts open and sent self-excluded people 839 messages. The penalty is nearly ten times the largest in the regulator's January round, and the law that lands in January raises the ceiling again.

• Dabble Sports Pty Ltd has paid AU$1,069,200, approximately $700,000, in penalties after an Australian Communications and Media Authority investigation into breaches of the online gambling self-exclusion rules
• The ACMA found Dabble failed to close 157 wagering accounts after their holders registered with BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, and sent 165 self-excluded people 839 SMS, emails and push notifications
• In a separate finding, Dabble sent 45 customers more than 2,000 push notifications that omitted the BetStop information the rules require
• Dabble has given a two-year court-enforceable undertaking to commission an independent review of its compliance systems and fund the improvements it recommends
• The penalty dwarfs the AU$112,680 Tabcorp paid in the regulator's January action against six providers, the latest in a BetStop enforcement run that began last year, and the ACMA says new laws from 1 January 2027 will "substantially" increase penalties

A Seven-Figure Penalty for Failures the Register Was Built to Prevent

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced on Tuesday that Dabble Sports Pty Ltd, operator of the Dabble wagering app, has paid AU$1,069,200 in penalties following an investigation that found it breached the online gambling self-exclusion rules. Dabble has also given a court-enforceable undertaking on future compliance.

The investigation found that Dabble failed to close 157 wagering accounts after the account holders had registered with BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, according to the ACMA's statement. The company also sent 165 self-excluded people a total of 839 electronic messages, in the form of SMS, emails and app push notifications. Under the rules, wagering providers must close the accounts of people registered with BetStop as soon as practicable and stop sending them electronic marketing. In a separate finding, the regulator said Dabble sent 45 customers more than 2,000 push notifications that did not include the information about BetStop the rules require in promotional messages.

ACMA member Carolyn Lidgerwood said the findings were "deeply concerning" and the breaches "had the potential to cause real harm". People who register with BetStop "have made a clear decision to exclude themselves from online wagering", she said, and providers "must respect that decision by closing their accounts promptly and ensuring they are not targeted with gambling promotions". She described the breaches as serious and said BetStop "only works if wagering companies follow the rules".

The two-year undertaking requires Dabble to conduct an independent review of its compliance systems and make the investment needed to implement the recommended improvements; if it breaches the undertaking, the ACMA can take it to court to enforce the terms. The regulator's statement does not say over what period the failures occurred, whether any of the 157 open accounts were used to bet, or how the breaches came to light.

The Penalty Sits Far Above the Regulator's Previous Round

The ACMA has been working through BetStop compliance across the licensed sector for most of a year. In January it concluded six investigations into Tabcorp, LightningBet, Betfocus, TempleBet, Picklebet and BetChamps over 2024 failures to block or stop marketing to registered people. Tabcorp paid AU$112,680 and gave an undertaking, three operators received remedial directions requiring independent audits, BetChamps was formally warned and action against Picklebet was still being finalised. In April the regulator warned Chasebet over inadequate BetStop promotion in marketing emails. Dabble's penalty is nearly ten times the largest of the January outcomes.

The ceiling is about to rise. The ACMA's statement notes that new laws commencing on 1 January 2027 will further strengthen BetStop, "including by substantially increasing the penalties for breaches of the rules". That is the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, which passed Parliament on 19 August alongside a BetStop cost-recovery levy and which also bans the direct marketing of inducements for three months after a person deregisters from the register.

The Rules Have Been in Force Long Enough for Failure to Be a Choice

BetStop's rules have applied for more than two years, as Lidgerwood pointed out when the January round was announced, and every case since has turned on the same two mechanics: matching new and existing accounts against the register, and suppressing marketing to anyone on it. Neither is technically difficult. An operator that leaves 157 registered accounts open and keeps messaging 165 registered people has a systems problem, not a judgment call, and the ACMA's remedy, an independent review paid for by the operator, says as much. The size of the penalty relative to January is the regulator signalling that the grace period for plumbing errors has ended.

Self-Exclusion Is Only as Strong as the Weakest Licensee

A national register is a promise made by the state on behalf of every operator: register once, and you are gone from all of them. Each breach is a breach of that promise, and it lands on the people least able to absorb it, since registering with BetStop is by definition an admission of difficulty. That is why regulators treat marketing to the self-excluded more severely than marketing breaches in general, and why the 839 messages matter more than the number suggests. It also explains the shape of the January 2027 reforms: a marketing blackout after deregistration and higher penalties are both attempts to close the gap between what the register promises and what a licensee's push-notification system actually does.

The Licensed Market Is Being Held to a Standard the Illegal One Ignores

The same regulator blocks illegal sites in batches, and the reform package gives it faster powers to do so and lets banks block payments to offshore operators. Both halves are needed. A licensed operator fined AU$1.07 million for marketing to self-excluded customers is a licensed operator that can be found, audited and fined; an offshore one marketing to the same people cannot. The sector's usual reply, that raising the compliance burden on licensees pushes players offshore, does not survive contact with this case, because nothing in the BetStop rules is a burden on players. It is a burden on operators to keep their word, and the penalty is the cost of not doing so.

Dabble has paid, undertaken and moved on. The next operator to be found with registered accounts still open will be doing so under a penalty regime built to make this case look modest.