Dabble Pays A$1.07M After Leaving 157 BetStop Accounts Open

Australian sportsbook Dabble has paid A$1,069,200 after an ACMA investigation found failures involving BetStop self-excluded customers. The regulator identified 157 accounts that were not closed after their owners joined the national self-exclusion register.

ACMA announced the enforcement action on September 16. Dabble has also entered a two-year court-enforceable undertaking.

Two Accounts Led to the A$1.07M Penalty

The monetary penalty came from two infringement notices covering daily failures to close two customer accounts:

One account remained open for nine days beyond the period ACMA considered reasonably practicable, and the penalty was A$178,200;
A second account remained open for another 45 days, producing an A$891,000 penalty.

Both notices used a rate of A$19,800 per contravention. By 15M's calculation, 54 daily breaches therefore account for the full A$1,069,200 paid by Dabble.

The broader investigation went further. ACMA's investigation report recorded 19,750 contraventions linked to 156 accounts that had no outstanding bets. Another account with outstanding bets accounted for 367.

ACMA treated each day that an account remained open as a separate contravention.

165 Self-Excluded Users Received 839 Messages

The investigation also covered marketing sent after customers had joined BetStop. A total of 165 self-excluded customers received 839 SMS, email or push messages.

Of those, 560 were sent where Dabble knew the address belonged to a registered person. ACMA classified another 279 as breaches where Dabble had been reckless about the recipient's BetStop status.

Part of the case involved a birthday campaign sent between December 2024 and June 2025. Dabble told the regulator that a campaign configuration issue resulted from a one-off human error.

ACMA said manual intervention could override the normal suppression process and found the controls required continuing monitoring.

More Than 2,000 Push Alerts Lacked BetStop Information

A separate review covered 2,074 push notifications. ACMA found 2,032 did not include the required BetStop information. Dabble said 1,596 were system-generated messages such as bet and deposit alerts, while 436 were promotional.

The regulator still classified the 2,032 alerts as regulated electronic messages because they promoted or encouraged use of the wagering service.

Independent Review Required

Under the court-enforceable undertaking, Dabble must appoint an independent consultant to review its BetStop compliance systems. The review will cover account closures, marketing controls and related processes. Dabble must then prepare an implementation plan and report progress back to ACMA.

The undertaking lasts two years.

From January 1, 2027, changes to Australian law will strengthen the BetStop framework and increase the penalties available for future breaches.