{"id":26402,"date":"2022-01-19T11:10:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T14:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=26402"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:06:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:06:33","slug":"australia-anti-gambling-campaigner-blasts-afl-crypto-sponsor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/australia-anti-gambling-campaigner-blasts-afl-crypto-sponsor","title":{"rendered":"Australia: anti-gambling campaigner blasts AFL crypto sponsorship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tim Costello of the Alliance for Gambling Reform says the new partnership is \u201ccorrupting and compromising the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Australia.- Reverend<strong>\u00a0Tim Costello<\/strong>, chief advocate of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, has heavily criticised a partnership between Australian Football League (AFL) and the cryptocurrency platform crypto.com.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/tabcorp-calls-for-tougher-restrictions-on-tv-gambling-ads\">Costello<\/a>\u00a0claims the AU$25m sponsorship deal is \u201ccorrupting and compromising the sport\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under a<strong> 5-year agreement<\/strong>, Crypto.com\u00a0will be the AFL and AFLW&#8217;s official cryptocurrency exchange and cryptocurrency trading platform. However he said that cryptocurrency speculation compromised the integrity of the AFL just as much as traditional gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said any relationship between the AFL and cryptocurrency exchanges or gambling companies would disrupt and damage the sport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said: \u201cAFL clubs have got out of\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/australia-player-losses-on-nsw-slots-reach-au2-2bn-up-to-april\">pokies<\/a>, by and large, but the AFL hasn\u2019t moved an inch on Sportsbet and saturation ads.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Costello of the Alliance for Gambling Reform says the new partnership is \u201ccorrupting and compromising the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":22974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Alliance for Gambling Reform, led by Reverend Tim Costello, has strongly criticized the Australian Football League's (AFL) AU$25m, five-year sponsorship deal with cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com. Costello asserts that the partnership compromises the sport's integrity, drawing parallels between cryptocurrency speculation and traditional gambling. He also highlighted the AFL's ongoing association with Sportsbet despite clubs largely divesting from pokies.","focusai_entities":"Tim Costello, Alliance for Gambling Reform, Australian Football League, AFL, Crypto.com, AFLW, Sportsbet","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.8), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (0.7), marketing_crm (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"AFL's Governance Framework","query":"What specific governance frameworks are being applied by the AFL to mitigate the perceived integrity risks associated with this cryptocurrency sponsorship, particularly in light of the Alliance for Gambling Reform's criticism?"},{"label":"Regulatory Implications","query":"How might the public and advocacy group's equating of cryptocurrency speculation with traditional gambling influence future regulatory compliance requirements for sports sponsorships in Australia?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,23876],"tags":[229,23911],"class_list":["post-26402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-social-news","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26402","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=26402"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26412,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26402\/revisions\/26412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}