South Australia: candidate for senator calls for stricter control on gambling ads

Independent candidate Nick Xenophon has said gambling ads on TV should be more tightly regulated. He also wants a ban on gambling sponsorship of sports clubs.

Australia.- Nick Xenophon, a former South Australian senator who is running again for the Senate, has said that gambling ads should be more tightly controlled and the sponsorship of sporting clubs banned. Xenophon wants sports betting ads on TV limited to the same hours as alcohol ads: from 12pm to 3pm Monday to Friday only and 8.30pm to 5am every day.

Currently, sports betting ads can be shown at all times except during children’s programming. However, news, current affairs and sports programs are exceptions to this rule.

Xenophon also believes Australia should follow Italy and Spain in banning the gambling industry from sponsoring sports clubs. He recommended that sports betting companies should pay 20 per cent of their advertising spending to a gambling reduction fund.

He told Yahoo News: “It makes no sense that tobacco advertising is completely banned on all platforms, alcohol advertising is significantly restricted on television, yet gambling remains a free-for-all.”

In April, Dr Aino Suomi, director of the Centre for Gambling Research at the Australian National University released a study about gambling behaviours that found almost 200,000 Australian children are exposed to moderate or serious levels of harmful gambling by a parent each year.

In February, new research from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that more than one in 10 (11 per cent) Australians reported participating in online gambling at some stage in the previous six months. That’s an 8 per cent increase from 2020.

ACMA aimed to study the impact of Covid-19 on online gambling habits and found that 16 per cent of Australians who gamble online reported an increase in their gambling frequency compared to before the pandemic.

Australian Greens renew fight to ban gambling machines

The New South Wales Greens party has renewed its call to ban gambling machines in Australia. It believes the country can afford to do without an industry worth AU$3.1bn (US$2.21bn) a year. It wants pokies to be phased out from bars within five years and from other venues within 10 years.

The Greens propose financial support to offset some of the lost revenue. They also want a complete ban on gambling ads on public transport and at sporting events.