In Australia, a parliamentary committee has completed its inquiry into the country’s online gaming industry and its potential effects on residents—of the committee’s 31 regulatory recommendations, perhaps the most controversial is a phased ban on gambling ads during sporting events over the course of the next three years.
In addition to the advertising overload, the committee also stressed that greater federal oversight is likely needed for the industry. Currently, gaming regulation is largely contained to individual territories, much like the U.S.
In an interview with ABC Australia, the chair of the committee, Peta Murphy MP, said that residents’ feedback indicated that they feel “inundated with advertising,” and are “very concerned that children are exposed and exposed regularly to ads for sports betting.”
“There’s a concern that we are producing, if we haven’t already produced, another generation of Australians who see sport and betting as intrinsically linked, and sport almost as a vehicle for which betting can occur,” Murphy continued.
As the law currently stands, gambling-related ads are barred from airing within five minutes of a live sporting event beginning or ending. However, exceptions apply after 8:30 p.m. local time, such as breaks in long-from events like tennis matches.
Operators and bookmakers may also promote betting odds during matches so long as they are not located at the specific venue hosting the event and are identified as betting representatives and not commentators or broadcasters.
Despite this, however, Murphy indicated to ABC that the restrictions “had the unintended consequence of advertising outside of those times exponentially increasing. Australians feel like there’s more advertising because there is.”
According to figures from Nielsen Research, Australian operators spent US$205.5 million on advertising last year. Murphy also mentioned the Australian Football League (AFL) and the National Rugby League specifically as being overrun with betting ads and sponsorships.
Given the maturity of the market, the committee recommended a phased approach to help prepare the industry for potential revenue losses.
As mentioned earlier, a stronger, more cohesive national strategy was also a point of emphasis from the inquiry. Murphy said that the country as a whole needed to take collective responsibility for the harm gambling has caused in order to address it effectively.
“A national strategy needs to look at prevention — so education, early intervention, measures that make it easier for people to stop gambling if they’re experiencing harm, that make it harder for people to gamble in a way which leads to harm — and then better, more comprehensive treatment,” she told ABC.
This is especially true for online gambling, Murphy argued, due to the vast number of companies registering in the Northern Territory because of favorable tax and regulatory conditions.
“It’s to do a little bit with the cost of buying a license, it’s got to do with the nature of the regulatory oversight … the Northern Territory, one could say, has won the race to get most of the providers to get licensed in the Northern Territory, and we heard a number of concerns about whether that regulatory regime is really strong enough,” she warned.
Instead, the committee argued that a national ombudsman would go a long way in investigating and resolving complaints.
Now that the results of the inquiry have been released, ministers across the country are likely to experience a heightened level of scrutiny about gambling reform, as many had said that they were waiting for the investigation to conclude before proposing any new legislation.
