Tabcorp has been forced to pay a record $4.6 million fine in Victoria over repeated breaches of gambling harm prevention laws between 2020 and 2023.

The Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission uncovered the ASX-listed wagering business had breached gambling harm minimisation laws on nine occasions over the three-year period.

The commission’s investigation into Tabcorp exposed how one account manager failed in their duties after making a welfare call to a customer who had been flagged by the company’s gambling harm monitor. The employee ended the call by communicating a deposit match promotion of $2000 would be transferred to the customer’s account.

Tabcorp also sent promotional material to another customer who had opted out of contact on six occasions over a four-month period. The group was also found to have failed to provide appropriate support to a customer experiencing observable signs of potential harm.

The penalty is poor timing for the wagering company, which has been strident in its advocacy for a total ban on gambling advertising, with the exception of racing channels. The Victorian regulator’s boss, Fran Thorn, told ABC Radio on Friday that she also backed a total advertising ban and cast doubt on the idea that media and sports bodies cannot survive without it.

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“Australia has saturation gambling ads compared to most other countries in the world. The review last year went into this very extensively and stepped out the size of this problem and came forward with this as one of the solutions,” Thorn said.

The federal government has come under fire from anti-gambling harm advocates for suggesting it may strengthen existing caps on live sport advertising instead of a total ban to avoid overly penalising media and sporting bodies.

“I don’t know enough about the finances of free-to-air television, but there have been other examples both in Australia and across the world where advertising has been removed and as far as I’m aware, the television stations didn’t fail,” she continued.