NEWSLETTERS

If you are a sports fan this time of year is amazing. 

 

We have just had the AFL Grand Final, now we await the NRL Grand Final and then Bathurst, and before too long the Ashes cricket.

 

Unfortunately, this time of the year is also ‘peak gambling’ season’. It is almost impossible to watch sport in Australia today without being bombarded by gambling ads.

 

Tragically it has become the norm. A person who is 14 years of age, has never been able to watch a free to air sporting broadcast where there has never been gambling ads.

 

And it is one of the preferred methods that the gambling industry is attempting to groom our kids to gambling. It is working.

 

More than 600,000 kids aged 12-17 years of age bet more than $18m last year. Kids now as young as eight can recite the brand, colour and slogans of gambling companies.

 

What kind of a whirlwind will we reap for the future if we allow our kids to be captured by a predatory gambling industry?

 

Already Australians lose more to gambling per capita than any other nation.

The other day I heard of a husband and wife who committed suicide after suffering significant gambling losses. It is not the only such story that I hear.

 

We must all do our bit to make sure the government and even corporations and sporting codes know that we want change. 

 

And that is why it was so pleasing to see such strong support that we received for our campaigns to make next year’s AFL and NRL Grand Finals gambling ad free.

 

We blitzed social media and traditional media, garnered the support of former Premiership Western Bulldogs AFL player Tom Boyd, and even drove a mobile billboard around the MCG and the Melbourne CBD over the three days of the AFL Grand Final festival with the message: Kick gambling out of football.

 

This month, the Alliance was very pleased to see the former chair of SBS, George Savvides, call on all commercial networks to mirror the move of SBS in enabling viewers to its streaming service to opt out of gambling ads.

 

The call came as new research reveals gambling participation and harm is rising in Australia and is linked to other serious issues including suicidal thoughts, intimate partner violence and financial stress.

 

The National Gambling Prevalence Study Pilot study was conducted in 2024 by the Australian Gambling Research Centre (AGRC) at the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) based on a nationally representative survey of 3,881 Australian adults.

 

Among high-risk gamblers, 16% reported experiencing suicidal thoughts, compared to 4% of low-risk gamblers. 19% of people whose partner gambled weekly or more reported experiences of intimate partner violence, compared to 7% of people whose partners did not gamble. Also, 66% of high-risk gamblers reported serious financial stress, such as going without meals or selling belongings to cope.

 

We really value your support. We believe that the more Australians speak out about gambling harm, the more pressure there will be for change, and our political leaders will have to act.

 

Thank you for your ongoing support.

You can catch up on all the latest news stories here, and our recent media releases are listed below.

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Media Releases:

AFL urged to kick gambling ads off the field, 24 September 2025

SBS makes gambling ad opt-out permanent - pressure builds on other broadcasters, 22 September 2025

Alliance pulls support for Vic pokies trial, 25 August 2025

Record $3.14b Vic poker machine losses ‘devastating’, 7 August 2025