A betting company pays AU$1m penalty for breaking self-exclusion rules.

[samadam007]

I think that's one of the advantages of being in a country with very strict regulations on casinos that there won't be any casinos trying to evade their responsibilities, and they'll comply by paying fines if they make a mistake. If it were a different regulator, perhaps the casinos would ignore that responsibility and instead point out that the user is at fault because they knowingly kept gambling even though they were addicted. The regulator might not bother dealing with the problem at all since they're just selling licenses and don't want to handle such complicated issues if it's required.
The system developed by the Australian regulator is also quite good because it clearly states that when players feel they need to self-exclude, they can register; they don't need to send a message to the casino. So it's up to the casino to understand whether their users are self-excluded or not.

This Dabble case shows that even with strict rules and regulation, some betting company still fail to follow it. That’s bad… well, the important thing is that there is a regulator that can investigate any casino failure and take immediate action when things like these happen.

I think the normal self exclusion method may be difficult for folks to abide by, because it takes alot of discipline to do it one by one on your different betting sites. But national system makes more sense because it’s easier to follow.

[o48o]

so here's what happened.

Australia has what they call BetStop, it's a national self-exclusion register, so when a gambler registers there that means they want to stop gambling temporarily/permanently. Since it's a national register, it covers licensed Australian online and phone wagering providers, and they have to comply by closing the account and stopping marketing to that person.

However, here's the problem, one betting company named Dabble did not close the accounts of its users, a total of 157, despite them already being registered with BetStop, and that's not all, they were also sending them SMS and emails as part of their marketing, so as a result they were penalized AU$1,069,200.

This for me is a good way to really help minimize gambling addiction as it's coming from the government, and betting companies have to comply because there's a topic before about a user complaining why he could still gamble despite requesting for self-exclusion. Now since that was a user's direct request to the casino, there might be some delay in processing the request, but this one I brought to you is more strict as it's coming from regulators, therefore betting companies really have to comply or they will be penalized.

Do you think this is better than self-exclusion that has to be applied through the casino?

Source: ACMA

Better? Isn't this about the same exact thing?

Is jailing robbers better then making robbing illegal? Because that's basically same question. This is just a penalty for casinos not applying the self regulation, and no, it's not "better". Better would be that there would no need for consequences, because everyone were following the rule of the law.

Imho it's an interesting that company must have been knowingly suppressing these requests on higher level. Otherwise that casino would be just blaming rogue helpdesk for ignoring customers.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

This Dabble case shows that even with strict rules and regulation, some betting company still fail to follow it. That’s bad… well, the important thing is that there is a regulator that can investigate any casino failure and take immediate action when things like these happen.

I think the normal self exclusion method may be difficult for folks to abide by, because it takes alot of discipline to do it one by one on your different betting sites. But national system makes more sense because it’s easier to follow.

I think you are missing here the fundamental point. In Australia, self-exclusion is done on a national level, depending on an external entity, not on casinos. In other words, it’s not as though someone self-excludes at a casino; if the casino fails to comply, they can lodge a complaint with BetStop, and they’ll be self-excluded directly through that channel. I think this is an important point because it is this centralised body that is responsible for passing on all self-exclusions to the casinos and ensuring that they are complied with. It’s nothing like cryptocurrency casinos, for example.

https://www.betstop.gov.au/what-to-expect/