Greens’ campaign compares pokies to heroin
Richard DiNatale, Australian senator and leader of the Greens Party, says he plans to introduce a bill that will ban all forms of sports betting advertising, reports the Asia Gaming Brief. The passionate anti-gaming advocate has gone as far as comparing gambling to smoking in its potential to do harm.
“The Greens have a bill to stop the promotion of sports betting, in the same way tobacco advertising was banned in 1992,” he said. “Nobody is saying people shouldn’t have the freedom to have a punt if they want, but watching a game of footy shouldn’t be like walking into a casino.”
The bill would also ban betting companies from sponsoring sports teams, AGB reported.
“Kids can tell us the plot lines for ads, the characters that they see within the gambling ads, they’re able to name multiple gambling brands—and when we ask kids about where they most see these ads, they say in sport,” said Samantha Thomas, an associate professor at Deakin University who investigates the impact of gaming ads on children.
In December, New South Wales banned the promotion of live odds during breaks in the broadcasts of sporting matches in the state.
But the gaming is fighting back, calling the bill a “piecemeal, political gesture.”
“Comparisons between sports betting advertising and the advertising of known cancer-causing products, while headline-grabbing, unhelpfully caricatures a genuinely complex issue of community concern,” said the council’s Chief Executive, Ian Fletcher. He said any ban would “have detrimental commercial impacts on the racing, sporting and media industries”; he said the industry and the government should collaborate on solutions.
In related news, the Alliance for Gaming Reform is seeking to have poker machines declared in breach of consumer law, reports ABC News of Australia. Geoff Lake of the alliance said pokies “are designed to impact on the most vulnerable people, they’re engineered specifically to get inside people’s brains when they’re going through a tough period … We wouldn’t be taking action if we didn’t think there is a very high likelihood (the campaign) will succeed.”
The alliance’s court action will coincide with a national advertising campaign that likens poker machines to both heroin and cocaine, reported ABC. It has the support of Tasmanian Independent MP Andrew Wilkie. “We have about 200,000 poker machines in Australia, and there’s about $11 billion being lost annually on those machines,” Wilkie said.
The alliance will target an as-yet unidentified poker machine manufacturer in its court action. Ross Ferrar of the Gaming Technologies Alliance has responded by saying both poker machines and manufacturers “are scrutinized heavily, that’s just part of day-to day life. Any further scrutiny will be passed with flying colors, we are 100 percent confident of that.
“There’s no disguise of any kind with a poker machine,” he continued. “Every outcome of every bet is displayed clearly on the screen as soon as the bet is finished—there’s no disguising of anything.”
According to CalvinAyre.com, Natale wants to “stem the tide of sports betting before a trip to the footy is like a day at the races.” The opponents of excessive gaming ads may have a point, reported the website. A Fairfax Media study showed that during the first weekend of this year’s Australian Football League season, one in six commercials promoted gambling companies.
But Australian Wagering Council CEO Ian Fletcher notes that sports betting accounts for just 3 percent of Australians’ total gambling. He said a ban on advertising would have “detrimental commercial impacts on the racing, sporting and media industries.”
