“We are always improving how we detect and take action against violating activity and encourage people to report this behaviour when they see it.”
Facebook’s ad targeting engine
These whack-a-mole moves come as the wagering and online sports gambling industries explode in size and popularity in major western markets, particular in Australia and the United States.
Facebook’s self-service targeting tools are a boon for modern gambling companies due to the power of targeting based on a user’s past behaviour.
Meta-owned Facebook has built one of the most powerful ad targeting platforms in history. Now, those tools are being exploited by gambling companies.
Then there’s LRI Media, which is what’s known as a “betting affiliate” – a company which sends potential customers to online bookmakers.
Sources say affiliates often get around $200 per customer they refer, plus up to 30 per cent of each person’s lifetime losses. Affiliates are therefore incentivised to seek out and send as many customers to different online bookmakers as possible.
LRI’s Facebook groups formerly went by the names “The Shark” and “Roughie Kings 2022” and used the platform’s advertising tools to find customers.
After Facebook banned the pages, the groups returned under the names “Sharky’s Racing Tips” and “King of the Roughies”. Once users click to get access to the so-called “free tips” from the groups, they’re sent streams of messages from the chatbots.
“Hey… we’re giving you a free tip to show you we’re the real deal, absolutely no strings attached. It’s a while till it jumps, but we’ve heard some really good chatter about it and thought we’d share it with you… just click the FREE TIP button below to access.”
To get access to the so-called “free tips”, users are given buttons to sign up to online bookmakers, most often the Tabcorp-backed Dabble. Even when users click “not interested” the chatbots go dormant for a few days, before springing back to life with more direct messages.
In an email on Monday, LRI Media Group’s Paddy Trutwin said, “our understanding, based on legal advice and correspondence from Facebook support, is that our pages are compliant”.
“With regard to the Facebook pages in question, Sharky’s Racing Tips and King of the Roughies were our sole pages referring racing customers in Australia – we recently have been focusing more of our attention on the US.”
Dabbling in customers
LRI Media is owned by two of the same entrepreneurs behind Dabble, according to corporate filings. This year Dabble was valued at $150 million after Tabcorp took a minority investment in the start-up.
Tabcorp has been on the front foot about the need for new regulations in the industry, with the company’s CEO recently telling a parliamentary inquiry there was “too much gambling advertising” and suggested a framework for regulating advertising on social media.
Tabcorp called for a new framework to regulate gambling advertising on social media. Getty
A spokesman for Tabcorp distanced the company from Dabble and LRI Media, saying it was “a minority shareholder in Dabble and does not have operational control”.
Under gambling regulations in several states, bookmakers cannot offer “inducements” like free tips in exchange for signing up to the service.
Earlier this year, the NSW gaming regulator found LRI Media and Dabble had broken laws around inducements, according to a document seen by this masthead.
