Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung calcotton woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Just a heads up before we start this episode, we're
Speaker 2: going to discuss gambling and mental health. If you need support,
Speaker 2: you can call Gambling Help on one eight hundred eight
Speaker 2: five eight eight five eight, or you can call Lifeline
Speaker 2: on thirteen eleven fourteen.
Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. Happy Friday.
Speaker 3: It's the thirtieth of June. I'm Sam, I'm Nina. Advertisements
Speaker 3: for online gambling are everywhere, especially in the world of sports.
Speaker 1: Bet three six five, the world's favorite online sports paying company.
Speaker 2: It couldn't be easier. Sports BET's bat was Mike's you
Speaker 2: just gotch your eye money and run.
Speaker 3: But now a parliamentary committee wants to ban all ads
Speaker 3: for online gambling. It says these ads are damaging to
Speaker 3: the community, but the gambling industry and even sports bodies
Speaker 3: have a lot to lose. We'll tell you what you
Speaker 3: need to know in today's Deep Dive, But first, Nina,
Speaker 3: what's making headlines this morning?
Speaker 2: The new South Wales corruption watchdog has found that former
Speaker 2: Premier Gladysbury Jicklian committed serious corrupt conduct and breached public trust.
Speaker 2: AIKEAK didn't identify any conduct by Barry Jicklian which warranted
Speaker 2: criminal prosecution. It did, however, recommend prosecution be considered against
Speaker 2: former MP Daryl Maguire. And if you're confused about all
Speaker 2: of this, go back and listen to yesterday's episode where
Speaker 2: we explained it all in the Deep Dive.
Speaker 3: Ben Robert Smith has agreed to pay the legal costs
Speaker 3: of the three Australian newspapers he brought defamation proceedings against.
Speaker 3: The prominent former Australian soldier was un successful in an
Speaker 3: attempt to sue The Cydney Morning Herald, The Age and
Speaker 3: The Canberra Times. The newspaper's legal fees could be in
Speaker 3: the tens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: At least seventy seven people have been arrested in France
Speaker 2: amidst days of unrest and protests against local law enforcement.
Speaker 2: It comes after police shot dead a seventeen year old boy.
Speaker 2: French President Emmanuel mccron described the shooting as unforgivable.
Speaker 3: And some Friday good news for you. Four time Olympic
Speaker 3: gold medalist Simone Biles will return to gymnastics later this year.
Speaker 3: The American last competed at the Tokyo Olympics back in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one and stepped away to focus on her
Speaker 3: mental health. Her return will be at the start of August.
Speaker 3: A parliamentary committee has recommended a total ban on all
Speaker 3: advertising for online gambling. This committee had a close look
Speaker 3: at the harm online gambling was causing and found it
Speaker 3: was in their works wreaking havoc in Australian communities.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Particular concern was this link between gambling and psychological harm
Speaker 3: and even suicide.
Speaker 2: How big exactly is the world of online gambling?
Speaker 3: Well, we're the world's biggest gamblers. We lose twenty five
Speaker 3: billion dollars a year and online gambling accounts for a
Speaker 3: growing share of these losses. Have a think about this.
Speaker 3: Almost half of Australian's surveyed in twenty twenty two placed
Speaker 3: a bet on sports or racing, and three times as
Speaker 3: many of us gamble online today compared to a decade ago.
Speaker 2: What I think I struggle with as a non sports
Speaker 2: fan is actually what this looks like at events in
Speaker 2: the world. Can you paint a picture of how integrated
Speaker 2: these betting sites and this betting promotion actually is.
Speaker 3: Wherever you're watching sport, there is a presence, an omnipresent
Speaker 3: presence of sports gambling ads around you. You know, if
Speaker 3: you go into a live sports game, when you walk
Speaker 3: into the stadium, there's often carts there where you can
Speaker 3: place a bet, and then those screens that kind of
Speaker 3: win around the stadium, they'll often have sports advertising on them.
Speaker 3: You've got announcements of the odds on the screens. It's huge. Then,
Speaker 3: if you're watching on the couch at home, you're constantly
Speaker 3: updated by even commentators. Sometimes on the odds of the game.
Speaker 3: They'll say things like, you know, we're bringing you this
Speaker 3: halftime update courtesy of betting agency X, And they'll say, well,
Speaker 3: this team's in front and they're paying a dollar ninety
Speaker 3: right now, so it might be worth placing a bet.
Speaker 3: And then they always say, you know, their disclosures. Gamble
Speaker 3: responsibly make sure you consider the impacts of this bet
Speaker 3: before you place it. But there's absolutely no doubting that
Speaker 3: sports betting is intertwined with Australian sport.
Speaker 2: And so when the Parliamentary Committee started looking at this
Speaker 2: world of sports betting and that advertising that promotes it,
Speaker 2: what's really driving that investigation? What do they say the
Speaker 2: risks are of this kind of prolific messaging.
Speaker 3: Well, they seem to be anchoring their findings on this
Speaker 3: idea that two thirds of those who gamble on sports
Speaker 3: are at risk of gambling related harm and that includes
Speaker 3: things like addiction, relationship breakdown and financial hardship. And it's
Speaker 3: particularly young men who are at risk. Those who gamble
Speaker 3: have a suicide risk four times greater than those who don't.
Speaker 3: So when this Gambling Inquiry asked for submissions, there were
Speaker 3: people with first hand experience of the impacts of gambling
Speaker 3: who are writing in. There was one submission from a
Speaker 3: man called Jeremy Ryan from Perth who wrote, not long
Speaker 3: after my sixteenth birthday, gambling took an unrelenting hold on
Speaker 3: me and has continued to ruin and rule my life
Speaker 3: for the past eleven years. He said, I can't watch television.
Speaker 3: I can't watch sport, I can't go on social media,
Speaker 3: I can't listen to the radio. It is truly, truly
Speaker 3: astounding the stranglehold these evil and avaricious companies have on
Speaker 3: everyday Australians like myself.
Speaker 2: It's crazy to think of someone getting started in all
Speaker 2: of this at sixteen and then being inundated with messages
Speaker 2: for the rest of your life. What rules currently exist
Speaker 2: around this online gambling space and the way that they're promoted.
Speaker 3: Well, according to the Committee, while there is regulation around
Speaker 3: the advertising of online sports gambling, it's inconsistent. So for example,
Speaker 3: rules are set out by a combination of federal and
Speaker 3: state and territory governments and self imposed gambling industry codes
Speaker 3: of conduct. Now, in general, there are a few limitations
Speaker 3: on what gambling platforms can offer. So there's one key regulation,
Speaker 3: which is no in game betting and on when they
Speaker 3: can advertise. So there's a ban on sports betting advertisings
Speaker 3: during life play, but you're allowed before, after the game
Speaker 3: and during breaks so in halftime.
Speaker 2: So those are the rules that are currently in place.
Speaker 2: What reform did the committee call for in their recommendations.
Speaker 3: Well, amongst the several recommendations made by the committee. There
Speaker 3: was a call for a total ban on all forms
Speaker 3: of online gambling advertising and inducements.
Speaker 2: And what is an inducement? I get an ad, but
Speaker 2: what's the inducement.
Speaker 3: Well, inducements are those special offers that are designed to
Speaker 3: encourage betting. So think of things like a bonus or
Speaker 3: an early payout offer, or multis which is several bets
Speaker 3: grouped together with a higher potential winning, and even something
Speaker 3: like a loyalty program. And these are things you hear
Speaker 3: being promoted a lot. And the committee recommends phasing these
Speaker 3: out over the next three years, but suggested an exemption
Speaker 3: for dedicated racing channels and a temporary exemption for small
Speaker 3: community radio broadcasters.
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to assume the gambling industry is
Speaker 2: not going to be stoked about these proposed reforms. What
Speaker 2: have we heard so far?
Speaker 3: No, of course they're not stoked. This impacts their bottom lines.
Speaker 3: So the betting Industry Lobby group opposed the ban, and
Speaker 3: they asked for caps on how many gambling ads can
Speaker 3: be shown instead of this blanket ban, and in response
Speaker 3: to that, the committee argued that partial bands could then
Speaker 3: be easily avoided for example, when in sport gambling was
Speaker 3: banned in twenty seventeen, and to give you a sense
Speaker 3: of what that looked like, if you're watching live sport
Speaker 3: during the game, there'd be those tickers at the bottom
Speaker 3: of the screen that would tell you exactly what the
Speaker 3: payouts could be or what the odds are in live time.
Speaker 3: So those were banned in twenty seventeen, but we actually
Speaker 3: saw an increase in sports betting after that because what
Speaker 3: sports betting companies would do is they would buy up
Speaker 3: more spots outside of the in play times, particularly halftime.
Speaker 3: We've seen a big change to what halftime looks like
Speaker 3: since that band was introduced.
Speaker 2: In order for these reforms to come into effect, they
Speaker 2: need to be introduced in past in parliament. Do they
Speaker 2: have political support?
Speaker 3: The minister responsible here is Michelle Rowland. She's responsible for
Speaker 3: gambling regulation and she wouldn't give an indication whether she
Speaker 3: supported the ban, but she did say the government would
Speaker 3: consider the report and its recommendations in full.
Speaker 2: What about sports bodies, because you've painted this picture of
Speaker 2: how it integrated this advertising of gambling is in the
Speaker 2: sports world. How sports bodies themselves likely to be impacted
Speaker 2: by potential reforms.
Speaker 3: Well, they have a lot to lose, and we know
Speaker 3: a lot more of than we did a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago because of an investigation by four Corners which
Speaker 3: revealed some really deep ties between the sporting bodies and
Speaker 3: gambling organizations. And what this investigation found was that agreements
Speaker 3: between sporting bodies, so we're talking here about like the
Speaker 3: NRL or the AFL Cricket Australia, they can earn a
Speaker 3: commission of up to seventeen point five percent of profits
Speaker 3: from Australians gambling on their events.
Speaker 2: That's huge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's a bit of a kickpack there and
Speaker 3: almost competing interests in sporting bodies getting large amounts of
Speaker 3: money for allowing online gambling to exist within their sport.
Speaker 3: So to give you an example of how this actually
Speaker 3: could work, according to the ABC's report, Football Australia gets
Speaker 3: either one percent of every bet placed in Australia on
Speaker 3: the soccer game or fifteen percent of the bookmakers profit.
Speaker 2: So they're making money off that gambling, even if the
Speaker 2: gambling companies aren't necessarily profiting exactly.
Speaker 3: And that kind of gives you an understanding of how
Speaker 3: these sporting bodies might be incentivized to push back on
Speaker 3: banning ads for online gambling.
Speaker 2: SAM as society moves to trying to separate gamblings from
Speaker 2: sport and the experience of sport. Do you think that
Speaker 2: it'll impact the way you and people in Australia consume
Speaker 2: sport and enjoy sport.
Speaker 3: I think about this a lot. What I've noticed with
Speaker 3: sports gambling in the last couple of years is it
Speaker 3: is slowly moving from dominantly public spaces like actual events
Speaker 3: and television broadcasts, the gambling itself, the ads for the
Speaker 3: gambling services into more private spaces, and the ways that
Speaker 3: some of the gambling companies are doing that is by
Speaker 3: offering it to be a group activity. So the idea
Speaker 3: that you can place bets with your mates and talk
Speaker 3: about it and actually ride that win or loss together,
Speaker 3: I think is really trying to socialize gambling. And so
Speaker 3: I think what we can learn from that is that
Speaker 3: even if this regulation does come through, we're still going
Speaker 3: to see it exist on that kind of matship level.
Speaker 2: So you're talking about this sense of community that exists
Speaker 2: when everyone's supporting your team and they've got stakes in
Speaker 2: the game because their money is now on whoever wins
Speaker 2: or loses. Is there a way or can that exist
Speaker 2: if people aren't gambling with money.
Speaker 3: I think it can and I've been involved in a
Speaker 3: tipping competition with a big group of friends for many
Speaker 3: many years now and no money changes hands, and it
Speaker 3: still allows us to engage in that who's going to win,
Speaker 3: who's going to lose, how's your team going, who's winning
Speaker 3: in the table without there being money on the line.
Speaker 2: If this episode brought up anything for you, you can call
Speaker 2: Gambling Help on one eight hundred eighty five eight eight
Speaker 2: five eight, or you can call Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on the Daily OS today. Have
Speaker 3: a great weekend, and if you enjoy this podcast, it
Speaker 3: would really help us if you left a review on Apple,
Speaker 3: Spotify or wherever you're listening, and we'll speak to you
Speaker 3: on Monday.