Australia
Bookies Cop NSW’s Largest Fine For Illegal Gambling Advertising
In the biggest ever fine of its kind in NSW, Ladbrokes and Neds were yesterday convicted and ordered to pay a total of $207,500 for offering illegal gambling inducements to NSW residents.
Under current NSW law, wagering operators found guilty of promoting inducements to gamble, face fines of up to $110,000 per offence and company directors can be criminally prosecuted.
Following an investigation by Liquor & Gaming NSW, Ladbrokes, which owns Neds, was fined in Downing Centre Local Court for each of four Ladbrokes and two Neds advertisements they ran across Channel 7, Instagram and Facebook in 2018.
The advertisements offered bonus bets for a smaller deposit, such as a deal to “Deposit $50, get $250 in bonus bets.”
These bonus bets only applied to people who opened new betting accounts.
Liquor & Gaming NSW A/Director of Compliance, Dimitri Argeres, said the clear inducements to gamble and open a betting account were accessible to all users on social media.
“Inducements are known to increase the risk of gambling harm and these advertisements reached a broad segment of the population,” Mr Argeres said.
“In NSW such advertisements are restricted to registered betting account holders.
“This record fine should serve as a reminder that betting operators have an obligation to ensure their gambling advertising complies with NSW laws.
“Penalties of this magnitude are not easily absorbed into running costs.”
Under the NSW Betting and Racing Act, it is an offence to publish a gambling advertisement that includes any inducement to participate or participate frequently, in any gambling activity.
Ladbrokes and Neds have the right to appeal.
The lockdown in Australia due to the COVID-19 crisis has given gamblers an unexpected windfall.
Facilities that offer electronic gambling machines have remained closed because of restrictions designed to slow the spread of the virus.
“That means that Australians are saving one billion U.S. dollars a month. And that is money that is appearing in people’s bank accounts and they are able to pay the bills and put food on the table, and for many people who are gambling heavily, this has come as a huge relief,” Tony Mohr, executive director of Alliance For Gambling Reform, said.
Australians lose more money to gambling than people living in any other country, almost 25 billion Australia dollars (about 16.3 billion U.S. dollars) a year. More than half of that money is pumped into electronic gambling machines.
“A woman at Easter had told me that she had money to buy Easter eggs for her children without trying to work out where to get the money from for the first time in years,” gambling reform advocate Anna Bardsley, who had a 10-year addiction to electronic gambling machines, said.
“The time is a huge loss to me. I’ll never get that time back and time that I could have been doing much better things, time that I should have been spending with my children. It was such a huge waste of time,” she said.
The shutdown has hit Australia’s gambling industry hard financially.
NSW Clubs, which represents more than 1200 facilities in New South Wales that offer electronic gambling machines, has reportedly estimated a loss of more than 35,000 jobs.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is set to request Australian internet service providers (ISPs) to block 10 more illegal offshore gambling websites.
The sites to be blocked are Grand Fortune Casino, Raging Bull Casino, True Blue Casino, Free Spin, Two Up Casino, BoVegas, Cherry Gold Casino, Slots Empire, Red Dog Casino and Wild Joker.
ACMA received over 30 complaints about these services that are accessible in Australia. ACMA’s investigations found that these sites breach the Interactive Gambling Act 2001.
Aristocrat Leisure has priced a new US$500 million term loan to strengthen the group’s liquidity and balance sheet.
Aristocrat said the proceeds of the loan will be used for general corporate purposes and was strongly supported by existing and new investors. The maturity date of the loan is October 2024.
“We are very pleased with the outcome of this debt raising which was significantly oversubscribed. The TLB market continues to provide Aristocrat with flexibility and competitively priced debt on a covenant light basis and we are grateful for the ongoing support of this important debt market,” Julie Cameron-Doe, CFO of Aristocrat, said.
“The transaction is part of our ongoing strategy to further enhance our liquidity, continue to invest for growth and position the group to emerge strongly from the current COVID-19 related challenges,” Julie Cameron-Doe added.
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