An investigation has revealed that the gambling industry has donated AU$80m (US$59m) to political parties over the past 22 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Australia.- An investigation by the Australian newspaper ABC News revealed that\u00a0gambling-related businesses and lobby groups have donated AU$80m (US$59m) to political parties<\/strong>\u00a0in the last 22 years. The amount is\u00a0at least double that identified in previous analyses<\/strong>\u00a0of federal political donations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to ABC’s investigation,\u00a0more than 150 ministers, candidates and other politicians <\/strong>received political donations. Gambling companies injected AU$14.46m into the political coffers<\/strong>, with Tabcorp (AU$3.95m), Crown (AU$3.25m) and The Star Entertainment Group (AU$1.77m) the largest donors.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Australian Labor Party received the most donations<\/strong>, with more than AU$39m, <\/strong>followed by the Liberal Party and the National Party with AU$22m. Some AU$16m was received by related entities, unions and campaign groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Danielle Wood, CEO of the Grattan Institute<\/strong>, said: “The gambling industry really punches above its weight when it comes to political donations. The gambling sector gives more dollars relative to economic contribution than any other sector in the economy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hotels, bars and clubs donated AU$35.95m<\/strong>, more than twice the sum of casinos, lotteries and other gambling businesses combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The investigation claimed that loopholes in Australian law allow ‘dark money’ to make up to 35 per cent of political donations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anthony Whealy, chair of the Centre for Public Integrity and a former Court of Appeal judge<\/strong>, said: “political donations actually become a threat to democracy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gambling Research Australia<\/a> has published its Second National Study of Interactive Gambling in Australia, reporting that the number of online gamblers has doubled in the past decade<\/strong>. More than 15,000 Australians were surveyed and 17.5 per cent of adults gambled online in 2019<\/strong>, up from 8.1 per cent in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Nerilee Hing, from CQUniversity\u2019s Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory<\/strong>, said: \u201cThis growth in online gambling<\/a> has been driven by faster internet speeds, the convenience of betting on smartphone apps and extensive advertising and inducements<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the study, 10.1 per cent of adults chose the lottery as their preferred form of online gambling<\/strong>. The second most popular choice was race betting at 5.9 per cent, followed by sports betting at 5.8 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An investigation has revealed that the gambling industry has donated AU$80m (US$59m) to political parties over the past 22 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":23562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"An investigation revealed the Australian gambling industry donated AU$80m to political parties over 22 years, with major operators like Tabcorp, Crown, and The Star Entertainment Group being significant contributors. Concurrently, a separate study indicated that online gambling participation in Australia doubled over the past decade, driven by technological advancements and extensive marketing.","focusai_entities":"Tabcorp, Crown, The Star Entertainment Group, ABC News, Australian Labor Party, Liberal Party, National Party, Grattan Institute, Centre for Public Integrity, Gambling Research Australia, CQUniversity, Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory, Danielle Wood, Anthony Whealy, Professor Nerilee Hing","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.7), product_ux (0.7), marketing_crm (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Donation Impact Analysis","query":"What specific legislative or policy outcomes have demonstrably resulted from the AU$80m in political donations, and how does this influence the regulatory landscape for iGaming operators?"},{"label":"Regulatory Loophole Comparison","query":"How do the identified 'dark money' loopholes in Australian political donation laws compare to international iGaming regulatory compliance standards, and what are the implications for governance frameworks?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,154,158],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-23559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legislation-news","category-slider-home","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23567,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559\/revisions\/23567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Study finds online gambling doubled in the past decade<\/h2>\n\n\n\n