Key points:
- Anthony Albanese says he finds the bombardment of gambling ads during sports games "annoying".
- Peter Dutton says he'd like to see gambling ads banned during play as well as one hour either side of a match.
- Experts say banning TV gambling ads will do very little, because advertising will simply move elsewhere.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he finds the bombardment of gambling ads during sports broadcasts "annoying", while Opposition leader Peter Dutton is pushing for a ban on ads during match coverage. But anti-gambling experts say banning advertising during games will do next to nothing to control the problem.
They add that a new fit-for-purpose gambling act plus a blanket ban is the only way forward for Australia.
When asked about the issue on Monday, Mr Albanese said there is a review underway into online gambling but refused to dive deeper on questions around a potential ban.
"I don’t want to pre-empt the review which is underway," he told Guardian Australia. “But on a personal level, I find them annoying."
Meanwhile Mr Dutton used his last week to say he'd like to see gambling ads banned during play as well as one hour either side of a match.
"The bombardment of betting ads takes the joy out of televised sports," Mr Dutton said.
"Worse, they are changing the culture of our country in a bad way and normalising gambling at a young age."
The Greens and independents have made similar calls for action.
Responsible Wagering Australia, the peak body for Australia’s online wagering industry, says it supports further advertising reforms that consider "the significant role advertising plays in sustaining Australian jobs, broadcast revenue and grassroot sports".
"RWA recognises the community sentiment around current levels of advertising. However, any new regulation needs to be sensible, evidence-based and take into account the views of industry, sporting bodies and broadcasters," CEO Kai Cantwell said in a statement.
Calls for a blanket ban on gambling advertising
Experts say banning gambling ads on public broadcasters during sport matches will do very little, because advertising will simply move to online channels.
"We'd like to see a ban on all broadcasting of gambling advertising," CEO of Alliance for Gambling Reform Carol Bennett told SBS News.
"We've done it with tobacco, and gambling is arguably as harmful as tobacco is for our kids. Why would we treat this differently?
"Politicians are elected to represent the community, not the gambling interests. The community is saying very loudly that they want this managed and they don't want to see their kids being the future generation of losers."
Industry insiders say regulating the gambling advertising industry, which is a complex mix of mutually-beneficial relationships, is a challenge. Source: SBS News
"Our young people are not even watching TV but are online, or on private sports channels like Kayo, or getting content from YouTube. Gambling operators are providing free access to some of these sports media platforms so they can influence these people who want to watch sport."
Ms Levin says gambling advertising is spread across diverse channels, including direct marketing to customers, public broadcasting, sponsorship, online and social media, as well as paying referral businesses called affiliates that receive commissions on their referred gamblers’ net losses.
Research shows young people (18 to 34 years old) are increasingly at risk of gambling advertising. Source: SBS News
Ms Levin adds the government needs to be prepared for scaremongering by the gambling industry, which she describes as "nonsense arguments".
"The gambling industry will be lobbying for gambling reform to be light touch by scaremongering that it will destroy little league footy and drive people overseas. This has been shown to be nonsense arguments and gambling industry self-interest. The broadcasters overseas are still alive and kicking, and so are football teams without gambling sponsorship."
Ms Bennett said the industry was a wide and tight-knit web, which made regulation a challenge.
"There's a lot of interest tied up in through the media companies, the sporting codes, the media buyers, they're all in it, and they're all taking a clip. It's difficult to unravel but not impossible if the will is there. The only way to prevent gambling is with a complete ban."
Anti-gambling experts say a new fit-for-purpose gambling act and a blanket ban is the only way to curtail Australia's gambling crisis. Source: Getty / AFP
How many Australians actually gamble?
Figures from the Queensland Treasury (regarded as the authoritative source of gambling statistics in Australia) show that Australians bet more than $174 billion in 2019-20, though this was down from $225 billion in 2018-2019, most likely due to the suspension of most sports during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The money takes into account racing, sports betting and gaming, such as casinos and poker machines.
When divided up between the 19.75 million Australians over the age of 18 (based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data), the $225 billion works out as more than $11,000 per person, with actual losses to gambling at just over $25 billion, or around $1,277 per person per year.
But while not all Australians gamble, many of us do. According to the Australian Gambling Research Centre, three in four adults (75 per cent) had gambled in the last 12 months, and two in five (40 per cent) weekly.
Betting ads have increasingly moved to online channels and social media platforms.
"Children are the next big market," said Ms Bennett. "We know that we currently have over 432,000 Aussie kids gambling online before they were even 16. And I think parents and the community are generally fed up with the amount and saturation and incessant nature of these advertisements targeting their kids."
While not all Australians gamble, around three quarters of us do. Source: SBS News
What can we learn from other countries?
Ms Levin has spoken to gambling regulators in numerous European countries and says Ireland, Sweden and Norway and other countries have started their gambling acts "from scratch".
"We need to follow their lead in giving our gambling regulators the right framework to tackle our very serious problem."
Belgium is the "lead to look at", she says. This year the country will ban all forms of gambling advertising on TV, radio, social media, sponsorship, even gambling companies contacting their customers and all forms of bonuses and inducements.
"By not allowing gambling operators to induce people to bet with free tickets, matched bets, money-back offers and more, it is having a really good crack at preventing gambling harm," Ms Levin said.
"The trifecta is to stop advertising and inducements, have government set maximum deposit limits and to give the regulators the right powers, including introducing a statutory consumer duty. We need to be more like Europe and have conviction that protecting our people is a moral imperative."
Ms Bennett agrees national action in Australia is lacking and a national plan is urgently needed.
"We don't have a single bureaucrat anywhere in any health department in this country that deals with gambling and related harm and yet, it's a public health issue.
"We've taken our focus off the issue to the extent where it's now a bigger problem than ever before. It's time for the federal government to step up and actually come up with a national plan about what it's going to do to address this proposal on a range of fronts because there is a lot that needs to be done in order to rein this in."
