Tabcorp Busted for Breaching Marketing Laws Again, Slapped with AU$2.7 Million Fine

Key Points

• During the period from February 2024 to June 2025, the company made over 351 calls to Do Not Call Register listings without permission, 82 calls during prohibited hours, and nearly 4,000 calls without proper identification.
• It self-reported making over 217,000 marketing emails and SMS messages to 16 consumers who had opted out of certain channels previously.
• This marks Tabcorp’s second ACMA spam enforcement action in 13 months, following an AU$4 million penalty issued in June 2025 for non-compliant VIP marketing messages.

Tabcorp Ordered to Pay AU$2.7 Million Over Repeat Marketing Breaches

Australia’s gambling giant Tabcorp has again been pulled up by the country’s communications regulator, this time over a collection of telemarketing and spam violations spanning more than 16 months. The Australian Communications and Media Authority confirmed the AU$2.7 million penalty on 22 July 2026, following an investigation that exposed multiple failures across different areas of Tabcorp’s VIP customer marketing operations.

The scale of what regulators found makes the fine look almost measured. Shares in Tabcorp Holdings (ASX: TAH) closed 2.23% lower at AU$0.88 that same day, a small but telling signal from a market watching a company that has spent the past 18 months accumulating regulatory problems.

Three Categories of Failure, One VIP Customer Base

The ACMA’s investigation covered the period from February 2024 to June 2025, identifying distinct breach categories that together paint a picture of a compliance function that was not tracking what customers had actually opted out of. TAB made 351 telemarketing calls to VIP customers whose numbers appeared on Australia’s Do Not Call Register without securing the required consent. A further 82 calls were placed outside the legally permitted calling hours. Nearly 4,000 additional calls were made without TAB properly identifying itself as the caller or stating the purpose of the contact.

Three separate violations. All involving the same group of customers who had, in various ways, already signalled they did not want to be contacted.

217,000 Messages Sent After Customers Said Stop

The telemarketing issues were only one part of the enforcement action. Tabcorp reported to ACMA a different matter in 2025 in which it was found to have issued over 217,000 marketing emails and SMS texts to 16 days of customers that had opted out from receiving such communications in their respective forms. An investigation confirmed that 217,687 commercial electronic messages were sent to 41,550 electronic addresses during the period of 31st March to 15th April, 2025. The messages covered channels that those customers had explicitly closed; they continued to arrive regardless.

The ACMA broke the financial penalty into two components: a AU$1.254 million Spam Act penalty alongside a separate AU$1,504,800 telecommunications infringement notice, taking the combined total past AU$2.75 million.

ACMA Calls Out “Serious Weaknesses” in TAB’s Compliance Systems

ACMA member Samantha Yorke did not soften her assessment. She described Tabcorp’s conduct as unacceptable and pointed directly to the gambling context as a reason the failures carry a different weight to other industries.

“When people join the Do Not Call Register or unsubscribe from marketing messages, they are making a clear choice,” Yorke said. “Those choices must be respected, especially given the heightened risks of financial loss and psychological harm from gambling marketing.”

She went further, framing the pattern of failures as evidence of deeper structural problems rather than isolated missteps. “The scale and range of these breaches point to serious weaknesses in TAB’s compliance systems. The ACMA expects TAB to fix these issues, and we will be watching closely to ensure it meets its obligations.”

The reference to psychological harm was pointed out. Gambling marketing is not regulated like clothing retail or food delivery, and Yorke’s language made clear the regulator holds it to a different standard.

Court Undertaking Adds Weight Beyond the Fine

The financial penalties come with a court-enforceable undertaking requiring Tabcorp to commission an independent review of its telemarketing governance, systems, policies, staff training, and compliance processes. The appointed consultant must report findings directly to both the Tabcorp board and the ACMA. The undertaking runs for 24 months, sitting alongside a separate spam compliance undertaking already in force following the regulator’s previous enforcement action against the company.

In deciding the penalty, ACMA acknowledged several mitigating factors. The spam violation was reported by the firm. The 217,000+ emails were sent in a mere 16-day period. The clients affected were subscribed to particular communication channels, and not marketing in general. This helped lessen the punishment which could have otherwise been a little tougher.

Tabcorp responded to the situation in the form of an official statement released through a spokesperson from their organisation. “We’re committed to being a compliant company and commenced a whole business transformation under new leadership at the end of 2024,” the spokesperson said. “Tabcorp assisted the ACMA throughout the investigation and will continue to work closely with all regulators as we continue our transformation.”

The Second Major ACMA Fine in 13 Months

This is not a first offence, and the ACMA made that explicit. In June 2025, ACMA imposed a penalty of AU$4,003,270 on Tabcorp for investigations that showed that the firm was sending more than 5,700 unsolicited SMS and WhatsApp messages to members of its TAB X VIP program from February to May 2024. This investigation showed that the company was sending 2,598 messages without the possibility of opting out, 3,148 messages without proper sender information, and 11 messages without consent. ACMA noted at the time that it was the first investigation to uncover spam law violations specifically within a gambling VIP programme.

The June 2025 case also resulted in a three-year court-enforceable agreement requiring Tabcorp to conduct an independent review of its marketing systems, run quarterly audits of its VIP programme, and train staff on compliance procedures. The new 24-month undertaking now layers on top of that arrangement. Tabcorp is simultaneously bound by two separate compliance agreements with ACMA, covering different but related failures.

The current investigation drew on two separate inquiry periods. One covering February to May 2024 found 283 breaches of the Do Not Call Register Act and 867 breaches of the Telecommunications Act. A second covering November 2024 to June 2025 uncovered 68 additional Do Not Call Register breaches and 6,438 telemarketing rule violations involving prohibited calling times and caller identification failures.

Tabcorp’s Compliance Problems Extend Well Beyond Marketing

The ACMA penalties sit within a much wider pattern of regulatory pressure. ACMA penalised Tabcorp with AU$158,400 in penalties because it had accepted over 400 illegal bets on 32 tennis games. The breach of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 was due to a system failure by the third-party service provider. In May 2026, an assessment was carried out by AUSTRAC to examine the adherence to the compliance requirements of the corporation in relation to the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, the outcome of which led to a fall in the stock price of the company by 25%.

The overall regulatory record of Tabcorp over the last two years includes issues related to spam laws, telemarketing laws, gambling advertising laws, interactive gambling laws, and financial crime compliance. No single incident tells the full story; the accumulation does.

AU$12 Million Industry Bill as ACMA Tightens Its Grip

Tabcorp’s back-to-back penalties sit within a broader enforcement push. Over the last 18 months, there have been penalties totalling over AU$12 million levied against Australian businesses for spamming and telemarketing activities. In this regard, ACMA has consistently maintained that consumers’ opt-out choices must be technologically honoured, not simply recognised.

Under the Spam Act of 2003, any company involved in e-marketing must have consent from the consumer, an effective unsubscribe feature, and identifiable sender information. Under telemarketing rules, businesses cannot contact Do Not Call Register numbers without consent, must call within permitted hours, and must identify themselves along with the purpose of the contact. These are not complex requirements. The penalties reflect what happens when a large, established operator treats them as optional.

Expert Analysis

Tabcorp’s position illustrates a compliance problem that is structural, not accidental. Two major ACMA fines in 13 months, both centred on VIP customer marketing, both requiring court-enforceable undertakings, both pointing to the same internal gap: systems and processes that failed to enforce decisions customers had clearly made. The AU$2.7 million penalty, while significant, is arguably the lesser consequence. Two overlapping compliance undertakings, a 24-month ACMA monitoring window, and a live AUSTRAC compliance assessment running simultaneously place Tabcorp under a level of regulatory scrutiny that its claimed “whole business transformation” will need to address with visible, measurable results, not quarterly reports and press statements.