Australia's largest betting agency will be forced to pay out a $4.6 million fine after it was busted breaching licence and gambling rules.
A Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission investigation exposed Tabcorp for alleged repeated breaches of its betting licence and the responsible gambling code between August 2020 and February 2023.
In one instance, a Tabcorp account manager placed a "responsible gambling call" to the customer whose betting patterns were flagged by its own monitoring systems.
The punter had lost $135,000 within the space of a month following a large volume of bets.
The October 2022 call ended with the manager communicating that a deposit-match promotion of $2000 would be allocated to the customer's account.
Australia's biggest bookmaker has been told to clean up its act after being fined for breaches. (Darren England/AAP PHOTOS)
The incident was indicative of a culture of Tabcorp not taking seriously its harm minimisation obligations, commission chair Fran Thorn said.
"The recorded call provides evidence of a lack of commitment to responsible gambling policies and demonstrates a lack of concern for the customer's wellbeing," she said.
"Instead of offering support or making suggestions to help the customer manage their gambling, the call was used as an opportunity to encourage them to continue gambling."
Other alleged breaches included sending direct marketing material to a customer six times between October 2022 and February 2023 after they had opted out, and failing to minimise the potential for gambling harm through inadequate training of employees.
While Tabcorp co-operated with the investigation, Ms Thorn said the breaches reflected systemic operational deficiencies and non-compliance with its licence conditions and resulted in "significant harm" to a customer.
"The hefty fine, the largest the commission has ever issued to Tabcorp, is proportionate to the seriousness of the licensee's misconduct," she said.
"It sends a clear message to the gambling industry that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable and will not be tolerated."
Tabcorp has been directed to clean up its act, with the watchdog vowing to actively monitor the implementation and effectiveness of a new program to overhaul its operations.
In a statement, Tabcorp acknowledged the fine but did not say whether it would challenge the severity.
"The harm minimisation measures in place by Tabcorp at the time did not meet community or regulatory expectations, nor did it meet the expectations that current management expect of the company and its people," the company said.
"Tabcorp has since taken significant steps to improve customer safety, including restructuring the safer gambling team which has led to an increase in customer interventions."