Unibet is fined for illegal promotions in New South Wales

Harry Mason

Unibet is fined for illegal promotions in New South Wales

Australian people love to gamble and especially to bet. Consequently, there is a lot of betting operators that provide high-quality service and have good offers for the customers. 

Unibet is one of the biggest betting operators in the country. They provide a lot of casinos and companies with their services. Though, it has been official that the betting operator has been fined for illegal activities. While gambling and betting are legal in Australia there are some restrictions. 

Within this fact, Unibet has had two promotions one was published in the Canberra Times and the other was placed on Unibet’s official website. While the operators can promote their product to the customers, who already have the account of the online casino, it is still illegal to promote the product to the customers that are not registered for the website. In the case of Unibet the promotion, discovered in February 2019 was placed on the website home page for ordinary visitors who did not have accounts at that time. As for the Canberra Times website, they have had the promotion of “Deposit $20, Bet with $100”. Which is also illegal to promote on the public websites where the main target is not gamblers. 

Both adverts offered inducements to bettors to participate in gambling activity, but promotions of this type are prohibited under the New South Wales Betting and Racing Act.

Fine For The Possible Harm 

There have been made comments regarding the fines recently issued to the Unibet. The director of compliance operations at Liquor and Gaming New South Wales, Sean Goodchild said this week the two adverts clearly offered inducements to engage in gambling activity or to open an account with Unibet.

It is the obligation of the betting operators and gambling operators generally to take careful care of the legislations and law according to the territory where they are making the operation. It is necessary for all activities to be conducted according to the state regulations. 

According to the implemented gambling advertising law, the operators will be facing a fine of the amount up to A$110.000 per violation. In addition, company officials can be individually and criminally liable.

In addition, Unibet is fined 470.000 Euro for targeting Dutch customers without being authorized and licensed to proceed with the activity. 

Google’s New Relieved Policy 

As it was known previously Google had a strict policy on betting and gambling advertisements. It was in October of this year when they finally announced the new regulations that were relieved towards the gambling advertisements. Within the first quarter of 2020, some of the US states will be able to promote their products with google. 

The new regulation is supposed to benefit gambling operators a lot since the tools with the Google such as Google Ads, Youtube and Google Display Network will be a great way to reach more people and consequently reach further customers. 

States of Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island already obtained the google advertisement license in October 2019. Some of the states such as Nevada, New Jersey, and West Virginia will be joining them soon. Despite the previously known strict regulatory policy Google had, most of the industry representatives are pleased with the changes.