{"id":777003145,"date":"2023-03-09T14:14:17","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T17:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777003145"},"modified":"2026-04-22T23:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:56:35","slug":"australia-gambling-industry-criticised-for-giving-free-tickets-to-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/australia-gambling-industry-criticised-for-giving-free-tickets-to-politicians","title":{"rendered":"Australia: gambling industry criticised for giving free tickets to politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A report has revealed that federal politicians received free event tickets from the gaming industry, which could be perceived as a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- An analysis of parliamentary interest registers by transparency organisation Open Politics has revealed that Australian federal politicians<\/strong> have received at least 151 free tickets to events and hospitality from the gambling industry <\/strong>since the 2019 election. Transparency advocates have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the report, 47 sitting MPs<\/strong> \u2013 over 20 per cent of parliament \u2013 and 10 former MPs have declared gifts, hospitality and shareholdings related to the gambling industry since April 2019. The majority of gifts have been provided by Tabcorp, while Sportsbet, Star Entertainment, Australian Hotels Association, and ClubsNSW have also given gifts to politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there is no indication that the gifts have influenced decision-making in government or opposition, transparency advocates are concerned about the perception of conflicts of interest. The report found that communications minister, Michelle Rowland, has accepted 10 free tickets for herself and others since coming to office. She accepted two tickets from Star Entertainment to see the musical Hamilton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowland has already been heavily criticised before for accepting donations from Sportsbet<\/a> before the 2022 federal election. Last month she announced that she would no longer accept political donations from gambling companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See also:<\/strong> Australian PM backs communications minister over Sportsbet donations<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Paul Fletcher and Anne Ruston also accepted free tickets and hospitality from gambling companies. Fletcher attended the Melbourne Cup in 2019 with his spouse at the invitation of Tabcorp and Network Ten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruston attended the semi-final of the Australian Open as a guest of Sportsbet in January last year, while serving as social services minister. This year she attended the same fixture while serving as shadow minister for sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centre for Public Integrity\u2019s executive director, Han Aulby<\/strong>, said that if ministers do not want there to be any perceived conflict of interest, they should \u201cavoid accepting gifts from companies operating within their portfolio.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transparency International Australia\u2019s chief executive, Clancy Moore<\/strong>, stated: \u201cWhile accepting gifts is not technically illegal, it does raise serious questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ufeff\u201cIt\u2019s even more problematic when a minister ostensibly responsible for the regulation of gambling is accepting thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of tickets, perks and alcohol from some of gambling\u2019s biggest names.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Open Politics founder Sean Johnson<\/strong> told The Guardian: \u201cWhile there\u2019s no hard evidence connecting gambling gifts and hospitality with favourable regulatory outcomes, we know the industry is not providing these benefits because they \u2018support democracy’.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report has revealed that federal politicians received free event tickets from the gaming industry, which could be perceived as a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":15797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"A transparency report by Open Politics reveals Australian federal politicians have received at least 151 free event tickets and hospitality from the gambling industry since 2019, raising concerns about perceived conflicts of interest. Major operators like Tabcorp, Sportsbet, and Star Entertainment are cited as providers of these gifts to 47 sitting MPs and 10 former MPs. While not illegal, transparency advocates highlight the problematic nature of ministers responsible for gambling regulation accepting such benefits.","focusai_entities":"Open Politics, Tabcorp, Sportsbet, Star Entertainment, Australian Hotels Association, ClubsNSW, Michelle Rowland, Paul Fletcher, Anne Ruston, Centre for Public Integrity, Han Aulby, Transparency International Australia, Clancy Moore, Sean Johnson, Network Ten","focusai_location":"Australia, Melbourne","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.85), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Lobbying Regulations?","query":"What specific changes to lobbying regulations or gift declaration rules are likely to be proposed in Australia following this report, and how might they affect industry engagement with policymakers?"},{"label":"Operator Reputational Risk?","query":"How will the named iGaming operators (Tabcorp, Sportsbet, Star Entertainment) mitigate the reputational damage and potential for increased regulatory scrutiny resulting from these disclosures?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,156],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-777003145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-regulation-news","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003145","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=777003145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777003178,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003145\/revisions\/777003178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777003145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777003145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777003145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}