“We recognise that in this instance we should have engaged with the complainant earlier than we did,” the spokesperson said. “In the three-and-a-half years since this matter occurred, Sportsbet has made further significant investments in safer gambling technology and has advanced its practices.”

The Northern Territory Racing Commission is the regulator for almost all sports betting companies in Australia and admitted in February its fines for corporate bookmakers pale in comparison with the $50 billion industry it tries to regulate.

The commission’s chair, Alastair Shields, told the parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harm in February the fine threshold is one of the issues the NT government’s five-year review of the surrounding gambling legislation will seek to address.

The commission has not suspended any gambling operators since 2018 but said the threat of suspension was enough to improve operators’ behaviour.

Sportsbet paid a record infringement notice of $2.5 million in 2022 after the Australian Communications and Media Authority found it sent more than 150,000 marketing text messages and emails to more than 37,000 consumers who had attempted to unsubscribe.