Australia's communications regulator ACMA has found that Tabcorp Holdings Limited, trading under the TAB brand, breached telemarketing and electronic marketing rules. The company paid more than AUD 2.7 million after the regulator identified a series of calls and messages that did not comply with Australian marketing requirements.
According to ACMA, TAB made 351 calls to numbers listed on the Do Not Call Register without proper consent, 82 calls outside permitted calling hours and almost 4,000 calls where the caller or purpose of the call was not properly identified. The regulator also said TAB sent more than 217,000 marketing emails and SMS messages to customers who had previously opted out of certain marketing channels.
The case is important because it shows how technical weaknesses in consent, unsubscribe and customer-preference systems can become a major enforcement issue. For gambling operators, the risk is no longer limited to what a campaign says. It also includes whether the operator can prove that the campaign was allowed to reach each customer through each channel used.
VIP Marketing Is Under Regulatory Pressure
The most important lesson for gambling operators is not only the size of the payment. ACMA's findings point to a wider compliance problem around how operators contact customers, especially when high-value or VIP segments are involved. VIP customers can be commercially important because they often generate higher turnover, respond to personalized offers and may have a more direct relationship with account managers.
That commercial value also increases the regulatory risk. When marketing to these customers relies on calls, SMS messages, email campaigns and personal outreach, every consent record has to be accurate, current and visible to every team that might contact the customer. A VIP manager cannot treat an opted-out customer as reachable simply because the customer is commercially attractive.
The case shows that regulators are looking beyond whether a message is aggressive or promotional. They also want to know whether the operator had a lawful basis for contact, whether the customer had withdrawn consent and whether internal systems stopped new outreach after an opt-out. If that evidence chain is weak, the commercial argument behind a campaign will not protect the operator.
What TAB Must Do Next
In addition to the payment, TAB must carry out an independent review of its systems and report regularly to ACMA on compliance. That matters because the regulatory outcome does not end with the financial penalty. The operator has to show that its internal processes can prevent the same type of conduct from happening again.
An independent review is especially significant when the conduct spans several channels. If calls, emails and SMS messages were all affected, the question is not simply who approved one campaign. The larger issue is how the operator manages customer preference data, who can activate a campaign, how recipient lists are checked and how quickly unsubscribe requests move across platforms.
In practice, that can require stronger controls before every campaign, automatic blocking of numbers and addresses that have withdrawn consent, documented campaign approvals and regular system testing. For larger operators, marketing compliance cannot be a manual check at the end of a campaign. It has to be built into CRM, call-centre and messaging systems from the start.
Why This Matters for the Industry
The message for the wider gambling sector is clear: unsubscribe requests must be real, quick and respected across all channels. If a customer opts out of emails or SMS messages, the operator cannot treat that signal as a narrow preference that another marketing team can work around. Regulators increasingly view marketing, player protection and responsible gambling as connected issues.
This is especially relevant in Australia, where gambling advertising, sports promotions, digital campaigns and consumer protection have all faced sustained scrutiny. ACMA's action against TAB fits a broader trend in which regulators are trying to reduce pressure on customers and force operators to prove that their marketing systems are not simply revenue engines with compliance added later.
For competitors, the practical lesson is that legal, marketing and customer-service teams cannot operate from separate versions of customer consent. If a call centre sees one preference record, an email platform sees another and a VIP manager works from a third list, the risk becomes structural. Structural weaknesses are what produce large numbers of individual breaches.
What Operators Should Check Now
The first area to check is Do Not Call compliance and any equivalent contact-suppression rules in each jurisdiction where the operator works. The second is how quickly an unsubscribe request flows through every marketing system. The third is evidence. Operators need to know when consent was obtained, for which channel, under what terms and when it was withdrawn.
Automated campaigns deserve special attention. If a system triggers messages based on segmentation, loyalty status or recent account activity, compliance rules must apply before the message leaves the platform. Manually cleaning a list after segmentation is not reliable enough for a large customer base.
Training also matters. A person calling a customer must clearly identify who is calling and why, rather than simply following a sales script. When a regulator cites thousands of calls without proper identification of the caller or purpose, that points to an operational problem that requires training, supervision and better documentation.
Bottom Line
TAB paid more than AUD 2.7 million because its systems and procedures did not adequately protect customers from non-compliant calls and messages. For gambling operators, the lesson is direct: consent, unsubscribe handling and VIP marketing controls must be treated as seriously as licensing, payments and identity checks.
Primary source: ACMA, published 2026-07-22.
