Picklebet Pays $19,800 After BetStop Customer Was Able to Keep Betting

The customer already had a Picklebet account, which had been opened on 25 January. On 9 February, the customer registered with BetStop. Picklebet requested the National Self-Exclusion Register about a minute later, but the register responded that the customer was not registered because the exclusion had not yet taken effect.

Picklebet did not receive a positive match until 1:54 PM. Before that happened, the customer placed bets through the bookmaker between 11:39 AM and 11:54 AM.

ACMA found that accepting those bets amounted to one contravention of the Interactive Gambling Act because licensed wagering companies cannot provide betting services to people registered with BetStop.

Picklebet closed the account when it received the positive match at 1:54 PM. The regulator announced on 22 October that the company had paid a $19,800 infringement notice over the breach.

The investigation also examined two SMS messages that Picklebet sent to the customer that morning. The first went out at 9:33 AM and the second at 11:22 AM. Picklebet described both messages as marketing, and ACMA found that they contained promotions, offers and incentives.

Both were sent after the customer had become registered with BetStop. That did not result in another breach.

The relevant part of the law required ACMA to establish that Picklebet was reckless as to whether the phone number belonged to a registered individual. The regulator accepted that Picklebet had not received a positive BetStop match when the messages were sent and therefore had not been aware of a substantial risk that the customer was registered.

ACMA consequently found that the two messages were sent to a BetStop-registered person but did not amount to a contravention of the marketing provision it investigated.

That distinction makes the case less straightforward than the penalty announcement alone suggests. The customer received promotions and later placed bets on the same morning, but only the provision of wagering services resulted in a breach finding.

During the investigation, Picklebet described the controls it uses once it identifies a customer through BetStop.

According to the company, an “NSER Excluded” tag is automatically applied to the account when the register returns a positive match. The account is then removed from marketing lists across its communication channels, including SMS and email.

Picklebet also told ACMA that it screens outbound marketing against those exclusions and instructs staff to remove a customer from marketing if there is reason to suspect they may be registered, even before a positive match is confirmed.

In this case, the company said it activated those controls once it received the positive response at 1:54 PM. The account was closed at the same time.

ACMA reviewed Picklebet’s account-closing process separately and accepted that the closure was completed as soon as practicable.

The February complaint was added to a much larger investigation that ACMA had already opened in August 2025. That earlier work began after three customers complained that their accounts had not been closed following self-exclusion.

ACMA eventually reviewed those complaints alongside a sample of 100 customers, covering 105 wagering accounts in total because one customer had a duplicate account. The investigation did not find that Picklebet had unlawfully left those accounts open.

Twelve accounts, including the February customer’s, were closed between approximately five and a half hours and 16 and a half hours after the relevant people registered with BetStop. ACMA considered closures within 24 hours to be practicable in the circumstances it examined.

The other 93 accounts had already been closed before BetStop began operating in August 2023.

Some customers received new BetStop closure notifications much later, after Picklebet introduced extra checks of previously closed accounts in July 2025. ACMA acknowledged that receiving such a message long after self-exclusion could be upsetting, but found that the accounts themselves had remained closed.

The final report therefore records one breach for providing wagering services on 9 February, no breach for the two promotional messages and no breach for failing to close customer accounts.

BetStop was introduced in August 2023 so that Australians could exclude themselves from licensed online and telephone wagering providers through one registration rather than approaching bookmakers individually.

Picklebet is licensed by the Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission and appears on ACMA’s register of legal Australian wagering providers.

The customer in this case did not have to wait days or weeks for Picklebet to eventually identify the exclusion. The positive register response arrived later the same day. What happened before it arrived was still enough for ACMA to find a breach.

The customer received two promotional texts, placed bets over a 15-minute period and had their account closed once Picklebet received confirmation from the register.

From 1 January 2027, penalties for breaches of BetStop requirements are due to increase under changes to Australia’s gambling laws.

For Picklebet, the February incident ended with a $19,800 penalty and a published investigation showing exactly how a few hours between registration and identification were enough for a self-excluded customer to continue betting.