An independent Member of Parliament in Australia is looking to uproot all gambling advertising as the number of players in the country’s leniently regulated market rises. Zoe Daniel, a teal independent from Melbourne, submitted a bill to the House of Representatives yesterday, proposing to eradicate all gambling-related marketing from the Australian airwaves. The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Prohibition of Gambling Advertisements) Bill 2023 is the full title of the proposed piece of legislation, which pushes for the complete removal of betting ads from television, radio, and streaming platforms. The Broadcasting Act 1992 would have to undergo various amendments for this to happen.
The independent politician said on Twitter she was submitting the bill as a direct response to the growing concerns regarding gambling advertising in the country. This type of marketing content has increased by over 300% over the past decade, Daniel stressed. The local airwaves are heavily saturated with gambling advertisements, leading to the desensitisation of the youth. The Melbourne teal warned that tougher measures are necessary now that residents have started to show a greater interest in placing multi bets than in sports events themselves.
Partial Restrictions Would Not Do, Daniel Insists
Daniel’s bill seeks to replicate the process of prohibiting tobacco advertisements in the mid-1970s. She argues that gambling poses a public health risk similarly to smoking and insists that imposing partial restrictions would not suffice to stop gambling-related harm. An outright ban is necessary to this end, according to Ms Daniel.
Daniel is hardly the only Aussie politician looking to clamp down on gambling ads. Earlier this month, the Opposition leader Peter Dutton addressed the issue during a budget reply speech and called for tougher regulations on betting-related marketing content. Dutton proposed to ban gambling ads during the broadcasts of sporting games. This includes the one-hour slots before and after the events. The proposition received overwhelming support from the public, with 70% of the respondents in a Freshwater Strategy survey approving the move.
A similar measure was surprisingly proposed by Adam Rytenskild, who serves as the Chief Executive of Tabcorp, the largest gambling company in the Land Down Under. During a recent parliamentary committee hearing, Tabcorp’s CEO put forward the idea of local bookmakers self-regulating themselves by showing no ads from 6.30 AM to 8.30 PM.
While this is obviously a far more stringent proposal than Mr Dutton’s, Ms Daniel believes both courses of action would prove inefficient. She argues that such partial restrictions would only result in the proliferation of gambling advertisements during other time slots. Daniel insisted that the government should completely outlaw these ads and impose higher taxes on gambling operators to counterbalance any potential revenue losses to local sports. However, her proposal for a blanket ban is unlikely to gain immediate support from fellow politicians as the Australian government awaits the conclusions of a gambling ad report.
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Daniel Williams
