According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, in the 12 months from May 2022 to April 2023 Australian gambling service providers spent $238.63m on advertising (TV, radio and online – including social media but not including print, billboards and cinemas). Of that 64 per cent was for online gambling (such as Bet365)*
You’d be crazy to spend that much money promoting gambling unless it worked, and indeed it does. Total, legal, gambling expenditure in Australia increased from $21 billion in 2019–2020 to around $25 billion in 2020–2021. It is big business.
But increased gambling advertising increases problem gambling, and the terrible harms that flow from that. A 2023 review of 1,024 papers in ScienceDirect, for example, found that studies ‘consistently support the existence of a causal relationship between exposure to advertising of gambling products/brands and more positive attitudes to gambling, greater intentions to gamble and increased gambling activity at both individual and population level. There is evidence of a ‘dose–response’ effect; greater advertising exposure increases participation which leads to a greater risk of harm.’
The gambling industry might like you to believe only certain pitiable individuals become addicted to gambling, but it can happen to anyone – including children and the vulnerable.
Gambling can cause small stressors for individuals and relationships, or things can go horribly wrong for gamblers, losing significant amounts or all their money. Whether you pawn your grandmother’s washing machine or bet away your house or holiday savings these outcomes of gambling don’t just cause mental health problems, or purely financial problems, they break down relationships and can lead to crime – and death.
‘Approximately 400 Australians committed suicide every year due to their gambling problems. That is an average of one Australian per day killing themselves due to gambling,’ according to www.thecabinsydney.com.au in 2019.
The Australian federal Labor government is about to respond to the 2023 parliamentary inquiry, led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy, that recommended phasing out gambling advertising over three years leading to a total ban. This is supported by polls that show that around 70 per cent of Australians want a ban on gambling advertising; but gambling advertising is big business and rakes in around 100 million a year for large media organisations in Australia according to Crikey’s Bernarde Keane.
As Keane points out ‘Media companies and sporting bodies have succeeded in derailing the push for gambling advertising bans’ and ‘after a year of consultation, Labor has emerged with a politically risk-averse proposal that goes just a little beyond Dutton’s original recommendation: a ban on gambling ads during, and an hour before and after, matches, but only a cap on ads per hour until 10 pm. This is coupled with a total ban on advertising on social media.’
The Alliance for Gambling Reform said it was ‘bitterly disappointing’ that the federal government ‘will not honour the recommendations of the Murphy report’.
‘The Murphy inquiry, unanimously supported by inquiry members from both sides of politics, found that the “inescapable torrent” of gambling advertising is normalising online gambling and its links with sport, grooming children and young people to gamble, and encouraging riskier behaviour,’ they said in a press release.
‘Gambling harm is a massive public health issue, linked to poor physical and mental health, poverty and homelessness, criminal activity, family violence, and suicide.’
Aslan Shand, editor
*The Echo has never accepted gambling advertising, in print or online, and you won’t see a form guide in The Echo. We do support local pubs and clubs, some of which have pokies.
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