“All advertisers promoting gambling and online games are required to follow applicable local laws and obtain authorization from Meta before commencing advertising,” they said.
“We have removed these sites for violating our policies.”
A referral network
Dabble was founded at the start of the pandemic by two entrepreneurs who built the app as a so-called “social betting” company, hoping to attract a generation of young gamblers who liked to post and share tips with friends on Twitter and WhatsApp groups. the conversations.
The company’s rapid growth has caught the eye of Australia’s biggest gambling firm Tabcorp, with the ASX-listed company investing $33 million for a 20 per cent stake in the start-up last month, making it estimated it at 150 million dollars.
The company has told multiple media outlets that it has signed up more than 150,000 users. But behind Dabble’s success is an Albury-based company called LRI Media, which ran Facebook pages and chatbots that bombarded users with messages asking them to sign up to various gambling services.
LRI Media sent users primarily to Dabble, but also sent others to various startup betting services. According to two gaming industry sources, so-called “betting affiliates” like LRI Media can make up to 30 percent of the lifetime losses of each person they refer, meaning they have lucrative incentives to find new customers on different platforms.
According to company filings, Dabble’s co-founders are the people behind LRI Media’s parent company LRI Group: Jonathan Robin and David Robin.
A spokesman said the pair run Dabble and LRI Group as a “long-standing partnership” and claimed the two men have no involvement in the commercial discussions or day-to-day execution of campaigns.
Broken gambling laws
In May, the NSW gaming regulator found the two companies had broken gambling laws around encouraging people to join the gambling service.
According to a document from the NSW Office of Liquor and Gaming seen by this post, Dabble and LRI Group had faced an audit from the regulator and were not complying with regulations around inducing people to sign up to gaming services of luck.
A spokesman for the Office of Liquor and Gaming said the companies did not face any financial penalty or sanction but received a warning. He said the regulator did not believe Facebook’s bots violated current laws around customer solicitation.
Dabble events supported by Tabcorp and LRI Media reveal how the next generation of gambling companies aims to weaponize Facebook ads, chatbots and videos to find new customers.
Questions remain about how the companies operate and how many other sites they have.
After the user followed Roughie Kings 2022 or The Shark, the bots started sending them private messages, gambling services and linking them to registration sites.
“Hey [redacted] it’s jimmy again! Not to be a spoiler or anything, but I have to let you know that seats in the VIP Kings Club are limited and filling up fast thanks to the hot competition the King has been having lately,” a message read. .
Another read: “The Shark model survives our Dabble partnership so we can continue to operate for free. We think it’s a great system (smiley face emoji) … If you’d like to get involved, you can do so below (Make sure to use promo code “TS22″!)”
The messages included Facebook buttons to sign up for gambling services like Dabble. Once users sign up, including going through the process of depositing money into newly created accounts, LRI Media pages share “free tips” to users within the app.
During the Spring Racing Carnival, both pages sent dozens of private messages to those who follow the pages. Users can click a button marked “not interested”, but hours later the messages from the bots continue.
Other sites with unidentified owners have begun to copy the company’s tactics. Sites with names like Henry’s NBA Tips, King of the Roughies and Free AFL Tips have bought Facebook ads promising free tips to users.
When users click the ads, Facebook’s chatbots start sending messages suggesting they sign up for Dabble.
One thing Shaw
In April, Dabble appeared to take things a step further. A low-key video featuring retired AFL star Heath Shaw was posted to the group of a popular men’s Facebook page called Blokes Advice.
“Since I finished my AFL career, I’ve done a bit of work with a company called Dabble, Australia’s fastest growing online bookmaker,” Shaw said, holding a company hat.
“Yes, they are a bit different, the combination of Twitter, Sportsbet and WhatsApp groups. You can jump in and copy tipsters like me, I have 45,000 followers already, which is ten times what I got on Instagram.”
With more than 200,000 followers, Blokes Advice claims to be a “digital haven” where male Facebook users come together to talk about a range of issues, including depression, anxiety and suicide.
The posting of the video on the site prompted some Blokes Advice followers who were shocked that the administrators of a so-called mental health site would partner with a gambling company.
“I’m no Einstein, but problem gambling makes up a lot of mental health issues these days…big job selling this kind of thing (sic),” read one of the top comments. “Gambling takes food from the table for families who are already struggling. Why promote this crap (sic),” read another.
One gambling insider compared Dabble-Blokes’ video advice to someone trading bottles of vodka with people leaving an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Asked about Dabble’s tactics, Tabcorp referred Financial Review to Dabble himself.
Dabble claimed that the company was approached by Blokes Advice and that during its “due diligence” it found that it was clearly not a support group. The company concluded a three-month commercial deal with the Facebook site earlier this year.
For Shaw, the star of Dabble’s Facebook video, it was just the beginning. The former soccer player now stars in Dabble ads and owns equity in the firm, according to company filings.
