All ads for online gambling should be banned within three years, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended.
The probe into online gambling harm in Australia put forward 31 recommendations in its final report while calling for a crackdown on an industry that was “manipulating an impressionable and vulnerable audience”.
Among the recommendations was a plan to phase out online gambling ads over a three-year period, culminating in a ban across all forms of media.
The first stage of the plan would feature a ban on online gambling ads during school pick-up and drop-off periods as well as the removal of exemptions for the ads during news and current affairs broadcasts.
The ads would then be banned during sports broadcasts and for one hour on either side of matches and further restrictions would be placed on in-stadium advertising, including ads on players’ uniforms.
A ban between 6am and 10pm would next be implemented, followed by a total prohibition at the end of the three-year period.
Ads on racing channels would be exempt under the proposal.
Other recommendations put forward in the report include a national strategy for online gambling harm reduction, a public education campaign, a requirement for gamblers to have their identities verified prior to wagering and a harm reduction levy.
Inquiry chair and Labor MP Peta Murphy said online gambling harm needed to be treated as a public health issue.
“Australians lose the most to online gambling because we have a weak and fragmented regulatory framework, which places all the onus for reducing harm onto the person who gambles,” she said.
“Gambling advertising is grooming children and young people to gamble and encourages riskier behaviour. The torrent of advertising is inescapable.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described gambling ads as reprehensible.
“We need a comprehensive plan,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.
“It’s no good doing just one portion of reform that then just opens up and channels it somewhere else.”
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said gambling posed serious risks to physical and mental health.
“We will consider all recommendations of the inquiry and work closely with states and territories on what comes next,” she said.
Talks are due to take place with stakeholder groups before the final changes are announced by the government.
The report follows a debate in federal parliament on the best way to curb gambling advertising.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton used his budget reply speech last month to call for a ban on gambling ads during sports matches and one hour either side of broadcasts.
Earlier this month, Liberal senator Sarah Henderson introduced a bill to the upper house to legislate the proposal.
Independent MP Zoe Daniel has put forward a proposal for a total ban on gambling ads.
A national self-exclusion register called BetStop is set to be introduced soon as part of the national consumer protection framework.
Free TV Australia chief executive Bridget Fair described the proposal to prohibit gambling ads as a knee-jerk reaction.
“The committee’s proposed ban is based on a fundamentally flawed premise that the advertising market is some kind of magic pudding,” she said.
“Reductions in advertising revenue in the current economic and competitive environment can only result in less funding for Australian content.”
Ms Fair said frequency caps on ads would be a better approach.
But Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young urged the government to quickly implement the reforms.
“Footy finals are just around the corner and parents and sports lovers shouldn’t have to sit through another finals season being bombarded with betting odds and gambling ads,” she said.
By Andrew Brown in Canberra
