A man who “binge gambled” $40,000 in an 11-hour session was awarded VIP status by the bookmaker BlueBet and assigned a dedicated personal manager who encouraged him to keep betting and took a cut of his losses.
A regulator has found it wasn’t until the man had gambled $700,000 four months later and displayed multiple “clear red flag behaviours” that BlueBet checked whether he could afford to be betting so much.
The Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission (NTRWC), which regulates most online gambling companies in Australia, described Bluebet’s conduct as “unacceptable” and “extremely concerning”.
The regulator found that when the man complained about having run out of money to gamble, his VIP manager supplied him with bonus bets, deposit matches and placed funds directly into his account.
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On one occasion, when the man’s request for an inducement was initially declined, he requested his account be closed. Within two minutes, the VIP manager had placed $500 of bonus bets into his account. The man had already lost $4,000 that day.
A federal parliamentary inquiry, led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy, called for inducements like bonus bets to be banned. It warned they encouraged riskier bets, higher losses, and undermined harm minimisation messages.
BlueBet, according to the regulator, prioritised the retention of a profitable customer over its legislated “responsible gambling responsibilities”. It found no evidence the VIP manager had been trained in harm minimisation.
“Instead of monitoring the situation and engaging in meaningful responsible gambling actions, BlueBet chose to award the complainant VIP status and assign a dedicated VIP account manager, whose commission was tied to the complainant’s net gambling revenue,” the NTRWC decision said.
Bluebet told the regulator that it called the man for a “responsible gambling check-in” after he repeatedly failed to place bets on his credit card due to insufficient funds. But the regulator found this call, which went unanswered, was prompted, in part, by “payment processing issues” and not concern for his wellbeing.
On the day after the phone call, the man continued gambling and requested bonus bets from his VIP manager.
“At no stage did the account manager make mention that BlueBet was concerned about his wagering activities from a responsible gambling perspective,” the NTRWC decision said.
“Rather, the VIP manager continued to encourage the complainant to wager with BlueBet through the promise of the provision of upcoming bonuses.”
In the two weeks after the unanswered phone call, the man gambled close to $400,000 with BlueBet.
Missed opportunities
The man’s gambling account was eventually closed when he texted his manager to say he wished he “had been pulled up earlier by you guys” as he had lost everything.
“Given the numerous earlier red flags, it is extremely concerning that it took the complainant himself reaching out to BlueBet for his account to be closed,” the decision said.
“BlueBet missed multiple opportunities for timely and appropriate action and it’s disappointing that the responsibility fell on the complainant rather than BlueBet taking a more assertive role in protecting the complainant from further harm.”
Despite finding Bluebet’s conduct to be extremely concerning, the bookmaker was fined $53,380, which is less than 10% of the $570,000 the man lost. This was the maximum penalty available to the commission.
The Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie has previously called for financial penalties to be massively increased to ensure gambling companies are effectively punished for their misconduct.
“It should be an amount that hurts the company financially and hurts them so much that they think, ‘heavens, we can’t afford that again’,” Wilkie said in 2023. “It should hurt them so much that shareholders say to the board, ‘that must not happen again’.”
BlueBet merged with gambling company Betr earlier this year and no longer operates as a stand-alone brand. The conduct examined by the regulator took place during 2021.
• In Australia, Gambling Help Online is available on 1800 858 858. The National Debt Helpline is at 1800 007 007. In the UK, support for problem gambling can be found via the NHS National Problem Gambling Clinic on 020 7381 7722, or GamCare on 0808 8020 133. In the US, call the National Council on Problem Gambling at 800-GAMBLER or text 800GAM.s
