Betting giant Tabcorp has been fined $262,000 for illegally hosting in-play bets on tennis, with the regulator accusing the company of exacerbating gambling harms.

Tabcorp accepted 854 bets during play across 69 tennis matches between April and October 2023, an Australian Communications and Media Authority statement revealed on Wednesday.

Taking online sports bets during live play is illegal in Australia under the Interactive Gambling Act passed in 2001.

ACMA member Carolyn Lidgerwood said the ban is in place to protect vulnerable people.

“In-play betting increases access to gambling opportunities and exacerbates the risks of gambling harm, as people can place bets with high frequency on multiple outcomes during sporting events,” Lidgerwood said on Wednesday.

Tabcorp initially told ACMA that the breaches were due to a technical error in its systems, but while this first occurred in April, the company failed to fix the problem until October that year.

“Tabcorp is a major wagering operator and it is concerning that it took some six months for the system error to be identified and fixed,” Lidgerwood said.

Tabcorp voided all the bets to ensure consumers suffered no loss and there were no profits drawn from the errors.

The fine is just the latest run-in with regulators for Tabcorp, which in August was fined $4.6 million by Victoria’s gambling regulator after an account manager told a problem gambler during a welfare call they could access a $2000 deposit match promotion.

The Victorian regulator said there were “systemic operational deficiencies and non-compliance” with the terms of Tabcorp’s gambling licence.

“This action is indicative of a culture in which the licence holder’s harm minimisation obligations were not taken seriously,” Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission chair Fran Thorn said of the fine.

Nevertheless, both the fines are closer to rounding errors against the scale of Tabcorp’s multibillion-dollar business, which reaped more than $2 billion in revenue from punters last financial year.

Advocates have been warning that without federal government intervention to limit the spread of gambling advertisements, the millions Australians lose to sports betting each year will continue to skyrocket.

As TND has explored previously, gambling giants like Tabcorp are advertising heavily in a race to cash in on an online sports betting gold rush that has spread from the United States to Australia.

Alliance for Gambling Reform spokesperson Tim Costello has told TND that Australia risks condemning another generation of children to gambling harms as companies target teens.

“These betting companies now literally own our sports,” Costello said.