Time to punt TV gambling - Chaney (10 Aug 2024)
Powerful media forces lined up to pile pressure on the federal government to resist a total ban on television gambling ads.
It was alleged this week the Albanese government fears the prospect of gambling-ad revenue loss will cause television and radio stations in WA to turn on the government.
"The government's fear of annoying the free-to-air TV stations is why they are being gutless on this," Curtin MP Kate Chaney said this week.
A meeting will be held on Friday to brief antigambling advocates on proposed laws to limit damage caused by sports gambling. Ms Chaney said sports betting was a serious health problem that should be treated the same way as tobacco advertising.
"I have heard heart-breaking stories of loss and shame from the Curtin electorate," she said. Multiple Curtin constituents, often parents of young men with insurmountable debts, had contacted her in desperation. "It has led to relationship and mental health breakdown and suicides it affects whole families," she said. "It's insidious."
Her Freedom of Information search had shown that the government had held 60 or 70 meetings, on the subject, mainly with gambling companies, media and sports codes. "I am particularly concerned about children's exposure to gambling products," Ms Chaney said. "Three-quarters of Australian children aged eight to 16 who watch sport think betting on sport is normal and can also name one or more sports betting companies."
A man who had excluded himself from 100 different online betting sites was still offered promotional free bets.
Hundreds of millions of advertising dollars were involved. When tobacco advertising was banned "the sky didn't fall in".
Ms Chaney is a member of the parliamentary committee that reported on the social and health damage caused by betting more than a year ago, the government is only now in secret considering the report, which strongly advocated for an online and on-air ban on the ads.
"I think definitely that the government's fear of annoying the free-to-air TV stations is why they are being gutless on this," Ms Chaney said Leaks to the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that online advertising would be banned and the present game-time ban on ads during sports broadcast would been extended to an hour each side of the game.
"Why would you do so if it is so dangerous that you have to ban it online but leave it on free-to-air where kids can see it," said Tim Costello from the Alliance for Gambling Reform.
Partial bans on cigarette ads, like those now being considered for sports bets, did not work, he told ABC Radio this week.
Mr Costello said that both the Albanese government and opposition leader Peter Dutton worried about upsetting media interests in WA, where next year's federal election is likely to be won and lost.
"A gambling ad is shown every two minutes on freeto-air TV in Australia," Ms Chaney said.
"People have this deep sense that gambling is intrinsically linked to sport, even though that partial ban is in place. "All the commercial stations are implicated because gambling revenue, gambling ad revenue, has tripled in the last 10 years, to $287million."
She said 71 per of Australians supported the total advertising ban.
Gambling companies had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to both major parties. "I think that's absolutely shocking," she said.
