Australian online sports betting agency "cold calls" questioned

Australian online sports betting agency "cold calls" questioned New South Wales Gaming and Racing Minister Graeme West is determined to find a way to stop the "cold calls" coming from the online sports betting agencies in Australia. Center stage in the discussion takes the online sports betting agency "Sportsbet", which admits to sending unsolicited free bets promotions to mobile phones. "We had to come up with ways to get our name out there and basically brand ourselves to make people aware of who we were and basically try to find some customers. We send out a recorded message to that number offering them a $60 free bet. It's obviously up to the person on the other end if they take up that offer or not, but if they do, they get sent a further SMS with our website details on there. It just explains to them to go onto the website and join up Sportsbet to receive their free bet," Sportsbet chief executive Matthew Tripp was quoted by ABC. According to Sportsbet, they have given up on the unsolicited free bets, but but not because of any pressure to do so.

Although there is nothing illegal about the unsolicited offers by a few of the online sports betting agencies in Australia, the New South Wales Gaming and Racing Minister describes the marketing strategy as irresponsible. "I've asked the department to see what we can do about making this strategy illegal. My understanding is that it's currently not illegal though. Telecommunications are regulated by the Federal Government so we want to talk to the Federal Minister about it, but we also want to see if there are any state-based initiatives we could do as well," Graeme West said.

Published on 06/29/2008