Betting giant Sportsbet will be forced to pay as much as $3.7 million in fines and refunds after breaching Australian spam laws.

It was found Sportsbet sent more than 150,000 promotional messages to some 37,000 customers who had attempted to unsubscribe.

But the messages kept coming.

Nerida O’Loughlin, chair of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, told Neil Mitchell the company had been fined $2.5 million for the breach.

It will also refund a total of $1.2 million to customers who shouldn’t have got the messages, who went on to place bets and lose.

“These are people who are vulnerable, who have tried to do what they can to help manage their issue and yet they’re still receiving messages after going to that effort,” she said.

When asked whether the breaches were a mistake, or intentional, Ms O’Loughlin said she was shocked to learn there was a “manual process” for handling unsubscribe requests.

“Their systems and processes just weren’t up to scratch, which for a pretty large and very sophisticated company we found pretty surprising,” she said.

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