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A Victorian keno operator has been fined AU$75,000 after a self-excluded customer managed to return to gambling by opening a second account, exposing another gap in Australia’s responsible gambling safeguards.
The Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC) found that Keno Vic failed to stop the player from gambling despite an earlier request to be excluded from its services.
The customer voluntarily self-excluded in April 2024. Five months later, they attempted to register a new account. Automatic identity checks did not verify the application, placing the account into a restricted play period instead of fully approving it.
That safeguard proved insufficient.
The player was still able to deposit funds and gamble. The problem only surfaced after they contacted Keno Vic to complete manual identity verification while trying to claim their winnings. At that stage, the operator’s systems finally detected the similarity between the two accounts.
Regulator Says Responsibility Remains With the Operator
The VGCCC accepted that the customer had tried to bypass identity verification. Even so, it concluded that the obligation to prevent self-excluded individuals from gambling rests squarely with the licensed operator.
According to the regulator, Keno Vic’s systems failed to identify the duplicate account early enough, allowing gambling activity during a period when the customer should not have been able to play.
The AU$75,000 penalty reflects the seriousness of those failures while also considering factors that weighed both for and against the operator. The commission said the sanction aligns with its broader approach of using proportionate enforcement to encourage compliance and deter future breaches.
Self-Exclusion Enforcement Continues to Tighten
The case adds to a growing list of regulatory actions targeting responsible gambling failures across Australia.
In May, Entain agreed to undergo a compliance review after the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) identified more than 500 regulatory breaches involving its Ladbrokes and Neds brands.
Earlier this year, Chasebet received a formal warning after failing to adequately promote BetStop, Australia’s national self-exclusion register.
The strongest penalty so far came last year, when the ACMA fined Unibet AU$1 million after finding the company had failed to close the accounts of more than 900 customers who had registered with BetStop.
Taken together, the cases show Australian regulators are paying increasing attention not only to self-exclusion programs themselves, but to whether operators have the technology and internal controls needed to make those protections work in practice.
Source: www.intergameonline.com
