IN THE NEWS

The Alliance for Gambling Reform blamed weak advertising and consumer protection laws for the promotions it says are carefully designed to make customers believe they are placing “safer” bets and that a win is more likely.

Roy Morgan polling of 16,000 Australians found 15.5% had bet on sport in the 12 months to March. It also revealed problem gamblers made up almost 20% of some sports betting companies’ customer base. The results were released on Tuesday by the Alliance for Gambling Reform to mark the first anniversary of a major parliamentary report calling for a ban on online gambling ads and making other recommendations. The group’s Interim CEO, Martin Thomas said: “These are huge numbers and they highlight how a predatory online gambling industry is ensnaring a whole new generation into gambling.

The finding came on the same day anti-gambling group the Alliance for Gambling Reform released research showing more young men are betting on sport than ever. "These are huge numbers and they highlight how a predatory online gambling industry is ensnaring a whole new generation into gambling," Alliance for Gambling Reform Interim CEO Martin Thomas said.

In a letter to the government, Rev Tim Costello, the Chief Advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, wrote there is “anger” in the community at the continuing gambling ads. He urged the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, to hurry up and announce action.

About three-quarters of community grants from poker machine profits in the 2022/23 financial year were spent on the venues, according to analysis by the Alliance for Gambling Reform on club declarations to the Victorian Gambling and Casino Commission. More than $241 million of $311 million in pokies revenue was spent on funding club operations including wages, staff meals, beer, gas and decorations

An analysis by the Alliance for Gambling Reform shows that of all the grants provided by Victorian clubs with poker machines last financial year, more than 77 per cent – or $241.7 million collectively – was spent on staff wages and meals, legal fees, council rates, pest control and prizes for members.

In this radio interview Interim CEO Martin Thomas joins Rob Cameron to discuss the pressing issues surrounding gambling:

👥 The profound social consequences and personal impacts of gambling.
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The devastating ripple effects of gambling harm on families and friends.
💸 The millions spent by gambling companies to use the latest technology to make games addictive.
😡 The rising public outrage, particularly concerning gambling advertisements.
📣 The importance of amplifying #VoicesForGamblingReform and their crucial stories.
📑 The urgent need to act on the Peta Murphy report and its 31 recommendations.
🚫 The necessity of addressing political donations from gambling companies.
🗣️ How the community can raise their voices against gambling harm.

It’s really concerning that when a ship sails 12 nautical miles off the coast it can allow anything and everything to happen,” Carol Bennett, the CEO of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, told Daily Mail Australia. “You would expect this cruise line would have some kind of duty of care to ensure that people are not plied with inducements, promotions, and advertisements that are pushing them to gamble to extremely harmful levels.”

Alliance for Gambling Reform said the breach could have been avoided by a centralised, secure universal cashless gambling card system. “This breach highlights just how unaccountable clubs are and how haphazard they are with the mountain of private information they routinely collect from the public, without direct consent,” chief executive Carol Bennett said.

Faced with inaction from government, some pokies venues are taking matters into their own hands to stem community losses from gambling, writes Alliance for Gambling Reform CEO Carol Bennett.

There is a growing backlash against gambling in Australia.

Across Australia’s eastern states, clubs and pubs are increasingly shunning poker machines.

In some cases, it’s a response to falling revenue, but mostly it is a response by clubs and pubs to the growing anger across the nation about the intolerable and devastating gambling losses we all pay a price for.

The mistake has raised calls for gambling advertising reform with the ground-based ads engraining gambling practice within the sport itself. According to the Alliance For Gambling Reform, three in every four kids believe that gambling is a normal part of sports, and anyone 12 or younger has never watched a sporting game without bearing witness to gambling advertising of some capacity.

“I am now reluctant to allow my child to view the footy fixture online due to the ‘Bet Easy’ icon next to the game. I also feel annoyed and dismayed at the AFL that they have allowed a gambling company to infiltrate the game,” an anonymous source told the Alliance For Gambling Reform.

Tim Costello, the Chief Advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, says the return of football has reminded many families of what they hate: “a tsunami of gambling and sports betting ads”. “Fans hate it,” Costello says. “Parents hate it. But the AFL is unmoved. Do gambling interests now completely own our game?”

The Alliance for Gambling Reform said the size of Crown Melbourne - more than double that of any casino in Las Vegas - remained a concern and called for the government to make the pokies limits in place at Crown mandatory across all pubs and clubs.

"All of Victoria deserves the same protection from gambling harm as patrons at Crown," its chief executive Carol Bennett said.

Canberra has the weakest regulation of any Australian state or territory, said Carol Bennett, who leads the Alliance for Gambling Reform.

It, alone of Australian jurisdictions, does not have all machines linked to each other in a network so that a gambler can't switch venues or machines to get round limits on spending.

Tasmania has just introduced such a pre-paid card system. It's also networked its machines so the system as a whole knows how much a gambler spends in a day - the system can monitor spending by each gambler.

Alliance for Gambling Reform chief advocate Tim Costello said there is no need for a trial.

“The evidence is overwhelming that cashless gaming works,” Reverend Costello said.

“The 1999 Productivity Commission report recommended the introduction of mandatory cashless cards.

“Canberra always boasts about how progressive it is, but it’s still dragging its feet for 25 years on cashless gaming.

“ACT and NSW Labor have $120 million of assets in pokies clubs. It’s the most obvious and horrible conflict.”

The polling implied 3.26 million Australians had made a sports wager in the year to March – more than double the 7% found to have bet between April 2019 and March 2020.

The results were released on Tuesday by the Alliance for Gambling Reform to mark the first anniversary of a major parliamentary report calling for a ban on online gambling ads and making other recommendations.

The number of Australians betting on sport has doubled in five years, and a third of spending on bets is placed by people with a gambling problem. Chief Advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform Reverend Tim Costello joined 6PR Mornings to share his frustration over the alarming gambling situation in Australia. “We are in trouble and nothing is happening,” Costello said on 6PR Mornings.

The Alliance for Gambling Reform is calling on the Victorian Government to act after finding clubs across the state are rorting a community grants scheme aimed at offsetting the financial harm of poker machines. In their recent analysis, the Alliance found that of all the grants provided by Victorian clubs with poker machines last financial year – more than 77 per cent ($241.7 million out of $311.6 million) were spent on funding their own operations. This includes staff wages and meals, beer, gas, venue decorations, security, pay TV subscriptions, accounting, legal fees, council rates, pest control, trophies and prizes for members.

Alliance for Gambling Reform Chief Advocate Tim Costello said Mr McLachlan's new role is "chilling for the community". "We have always known that Gill's great passion is gambling, he was touted to be the chair of Racing Victoria and post being the AFL supremo," Mr Costello told ABC News Breakfast.

Victorian pokies clubs are using hundreds of millions of dollars from a lucrative tax break to pay for wages, venue decorations and pay-TV subscriptions, prompting calls for the state government to overhaul the concession.

In Victoria, club venue operators receive a favourable tax rate compared with hotels, but must contribute a proportion of their net gaming machine revenue – 8.33 per cent – back to the community each financial year.

Three BWS stores have secured a licence to sell lottery products in Sydney.

The move was criticised by the Gambling Reform Alliance. It says lottery should not have more lenient treatment than other forms of gambling, noting that a study published in the Addictive Behaviors journal said nearly one-third of people who exclusively gamble on lotteries are at some level of risk related to gambling.

The Alliance for Gambling Reform (AGR) took the opportunity to “spotlight the need for cashless gambling cards”. “This breach highlights just how unaccountable clubs are and how haphazard they are with the mountain of private information they routinely collect from the public – without direct consent,” CEO Carol Bennett said.

Alliance for Gambling Reform said the breach could have been avoided by a centralised, secure universal cashless gambling card system. "This breach highlights just how unaccountable clubs are and how haphazard they are with the mountain of private information they routinely collect from the public, without direct consent," chief executive Carol Bennett said in a statement.

“The Hastings Club is reacting to state regulations that limit its capacity to meet increased liabilities at a time when returns from gambling are diminishing,” said the Alliance for Gambling Reform chief executive Carol Bennett.

“The government should be providing clubs every opportunity to surrender poker machine entitlements for the benefit of the community, but this is unlikely given the parlous budgetary situation in Victoria,” she said.

“A government focussed on reducing gambling harm would strive to reduce overall pokies entitlements altogether. Revenue from gambling should not be propping up the Victorian budget.”

Alliance for Gambling Reform CEO Carol Bennett asked why the two had to be mutually exclusive.

“Why wouldn’t we aim for both?” she asked.

ACTCOSS CEO Devin Bowles added: “Having a system that encompasses the whole jurisdiction is absolutely essential if we want to minimise gambling harms.”

The Rural City of Wangaratta will join the Alliance with the action endorsed in a March council meeting. The decision to join the Alliance is one of the measures under council's endorsement of its Policy to Reduce Gambling Harm and Strategic Plan to Reduce Gambling Harm.

Alliance for Gambling Reform chief executive Carol Bennett said while Crown’s transformation plan had been a step forward, the entire gambling sector should be subject to tougher rules, such as cashless gaming.

“What we are seeking is that the standards that now apply to Crown will also apply to pubs and clubs across Victoria,” Bennett said.

“If that doesn’t happen, the problems we saw at Crown will shift into the community. We’re creating an uneven playing field.”

n the 2022-23 financial year, Queenslanders lost more than more than $5 billion to gambling — of which about $3.2 billion was lost through poker machines.

Alliance for Gambling Reform interim chief executive Martin Thomas said his organisation was opposed to the proposal to increase the cap on gaming machines at clubs with multiple sites.

The findings were released by Alliance for Gambling Reform and come on the one-year anniversary of a parliamentary report which called for stronger regulations around online gambling advertising, among other recommendations. Martin Thomas, the Interim CEO of Alliance for Gambling Reform, described the numbers in the research as “huge”, saying they highlight a “predatory online gambling industry” that is “ensnaring a whole new generation into gambling.” Thomas pointed to the “inescapable torrent” gambling ads as having a “normalising” effect on betting, and said advertising is “grooming children and young people to gamble”.

“We are now planning to publicly campaign in the lead up to the 12-month anniversary of the Government’s receipt of the [Murphy] report,” said Alliance Chief Advocate, Rev Tim Costello. “We plan to praise the Government’s work to date as well as anticipate more gambling harm reforms.”

Tim Costello says the appointment of ex-AFL boss Gillon McLachlan as Tabcorp CEO will only strengthen ties between sports and gambling, at a time when Australia remains at the peak of global gambling losses per capita.

Tim Costello, Chief Advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, called the appointment curious, saying Tabcorp’s rival Sportsbet had received a “great leg up” from the AFL under McLachlan, and the AFL had profited greatly in return. “Gil opened the doors [to gambling firms] and basically said take over the game. In return, they got three bites of the gambling pie,” Costello said.

Tim Costello, spokesperson for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, has accused the Albanese government of failing to prevent an explosion in wagering losses, saying a ban on using credit cards for online betting won’t stop the deluge of “predatory” gambling ads on sports.

Many consider buying a lotto ticket every now and then a harmless activity and scratchies are often shared as gifts. However, Gambling Reform Alliance chief executive Carol Bennett said the risks of lotteries should not be underestimated.

The Alliance for Gambling Reform argued lotteries should not be treated more leniently than other betting activities.

Alliance for Gambling Reform said the breach could have been avoided by a centralised, secure universal cashless gambling card system. "This breach highlights just how unaccountable clubs are and how haphazard they are with the mountain of private information they routinely collect from the public, without direct consent," chief executive Carol Bennett said in a statement.

The report into the cashless gaming trial conducted at Wests Newcastle has received criticism from various industry stakeholders after it showed the technology to have little impact on the behaviour of gamblers.

The main areas of concern have stemmed from the trial’s lack of harm-reducing features and lack of features that encourage continued participation.

“It was mostly about testing the technology and a little bit of a hint towards harm minimisation,” said Carol Bennet, CEO of the Alliance for Gambling Reform.

“I would have liked to see more on the harm minimisation front.”

The mistake raised calls for gambling advertising reform with the ground-based ads engraining gambling practice within the sport itself. According to the Alliance For Gambling Reform, three in every four kids believe that gambling is a normal part of sports, and anyone 12 or younger has never watched a sporting game without bearing witness to gambling advertising of some capacity.

Outspoken anti-poker machine campaigner and supporter of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, Pat Daley, praised the club for going pokie-free.

Mr Daley, who pushed for gambling reforms while a councillor with Northern Beaches and Warringah councils, said it th golf club was seen as a “real example of what can be done” as NSW moves towards a reduction in macines and tougher poker machine policies.

“The proposed new club has wide support in the local community”.

Alliance for Gambling Reform called for a national wagering commission, saying the Northern Territory had proven it “was not equipped” to regulate the industry.

“The federal government must step in,” chief executive Carol Bennett said, in line with recommendations from last year’s ‘You win some, you lose more’ parliamentary inquiry into online gambling.

Ms Bennett said that in drafting its laws the NT government consulted 28 gambling companies and just one harm-minimisation organisation, resulting in proposed $1.7m penalties being slashed to $440,000.

“If the NT government were serious about who their clients were, they’d recognise that it’s the Australian public, not the gambling industry,” she said.

The CMS has the support of the Alliance for Gambling Reform. CEO Carol Bennett said would be an “important step” as it could provide information about who is gambling, when and how much, and can flag those at risk of gambling harm.