The issues
Australians bet a staggering $244.3 billion in 2022-23 on legal forms of gambling and lost around A$25 billion that year, representing the largest per person losses in the world.
Gambling has grown to become normalised in Australian culture, encouraged by gambling advertising and the link to sport.
Almost nine out of ten sports betters are men but women, who were once largely excluded from gambling, are now targeted by the betting sector, made easy by the ready access to gambling on smartphones.
Clever marketing, weak regulation, and technologies such as sports betting apps and online casinos are increasing opportunities to gamble.
Nearly half of gamblers are at risk of, or already experience harms from gambling. These include financial hardship, relationship breakdown, domestic violence, poor work productivity, criminality, insomnia, depression and suicide.
Children are being groomed to gamble by advertising and some even have sports betting apps and accounts.
The Federal Government has ‘deferred’ any reforms that might have protected children and gamblers. The Parliamentary inquiry – You win some you lose more – initiated and chaired by the late Peta Murphy, made 31 unanimous recommendations mostly on advertising of gambling. None has been implemented to date.
Our plan
- Ban gambling advertisements on platforms including free-to-air TV and radio, paid streaming services, social media & external billboard-type advertising.
- Consider additional measures to strongly discourage overseas-based media platforms displaying advertisements for gambling that allow Australian gambling. This could include fines for Australian businesses using those platforms. (End Gambling Ads)
- Transfer the responsibility for casino regulation to the federal government and establish a National Casino Regulator and Online Gaming Ombudsman, as recommended by the Bergin Report . Australia is a hot spot for global money laundering, much of it occurring in casinos. (The Mandarin and The Guardian, Feb 2021)
- Enforce current money-laundering laws, require casinos to implement programs, training and controls with independent testing for compliance.
- Ban cash, cryptocurrency, or other anonymous payment mechanisms to place bets and to receive winnings using any digital platform or electronic gaming device, and ban such transactions over designated thresholds for other forms of gambling.
- All gambling transactions to be categorised on bank statements as ‘gambling or wagering’ in order to provide feedback to individuals on their transactions.
- Extend the current online National Self-Exclusion Register to include all forms of gaming and provide options for self-exclusion registration with banks in addition to betting agencies. Note that some banks allow gambling blocks including Bank of Melbourne (credit cards only) and Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac (debit and credit cards)
For children under 18:
- Enforce strict proof of age before entering gaming venues
- Legislate against the use of microtransactions in online games available to children
- Ensure that understanding of the harms of gambling is part of the curriculum in personal development, health and physical education in all high schools
- Provide focused support for children whose parent has been identified as a problem gambler and the partners or spouses of problem gamblers.
The evidence
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Growing up in Australia found approximately 1 in 6 (16%) of Australians aged 16–17 participated in underage gambling in the 12 months prior to the survey (most commonly private betting). Two years later (when aged 18–19), almost half (46%) of the same cohort reported having spent money gambling
Vested interest is playing out and looks like winning. Governments, particularly state governments, have vested interests too. In financial year 2020 Australian governments raised around $5.8 billion in revenue from gambling. The year before it was an all-time high of $6.6 billion.
Sport, television and a revolving door of former MPs and lobbyists are all deeply enmeshed in gambling and this has become a powerful force to reckon with.
Embarrassing to us all was the Prime Minister’s claim that banning gambling ads will drive people offshore. Yet another excuse for the status quo.
References:
Australia is a hot spot for global money laundering.
Study finds online gambling doubled in past decade
Second National Study of Interactive Gambling in Australia
Plans to cut Crown pokie players’ losses on ice amid feasibility fears
‘The deceit, the crime, the destroyed lives’: How Australia lost its gamble on casinos