Crossbench MPs in Australia have warned that gambling advertisement rules around podcasters, social media platforms and influencers need to be tightened to prevent any potential exploitation of the regulations.
Reported by The Guardian, a spokesperson for the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, has said that the government’s partial ban on gambling advertisements will include more “specific definitions” on when and where the restrictions will apply, as to avoid any loopholes.
She said: “Further details and specific definitions will be refined through the legislative drafting process, which will include consultation with key stakeholders.”
The debate around gambling advertisements in Australia has been ongoing for quite some time. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese outlined the Labor government’s plans to take “strong and decisive actions” to curb gambling adverts across Australia. The decision, he said, would help to better protect both young and vulnerable audiences.
This stance is a step up from a 2023 parliamentary report, known as the Murphy Report, which made 31 recommendations for gambling regulatory reform in Australia – one of the flagship recommendations made in the report was a ban on gambling advertisements.
However, the speed at which the government has managed to implement recommendations from the report has been somewhat slow, creating a point of frustration for many backbench MPs.
Closing gambling advertising loopholes
Under the partial ban on gambling advertisements, streaming video, music and podcast platforms – as well as search engines and websites that feature gambling content – will be required to ensure that users are signed in, are over 18 years old, and have the option to opt out from seeing wagering content.
Known as a ‘triple lock functionality’, the government hopes that this will ultimately curb audiences’ exposure to wagering.
However, the Guardian has reported that “several industry sources” have said that streaming platforms, such as Apple Podcasts, are mulling over new age-gating mechanisms, with further suggestions that the platforms are considering removing all betting content outright on the basis that there would be no simple mechanism to work within the rules.
Currently, the rules regarding individual podcasts are still unclear; questions have since been raised over who the onus of responsibility lies with when it comes to removing gambling adverts, or who should be tasked with creating the opt-out function.
Simone McCarthy, a Researcher in Gambling and Public Health at Deakin University, has said that the existing regulations would need to be tightened even further to ensure that grey areas covering both podcasts and social media content are covered.
She said: “When people work with advertisers on podcasts, they often do an ad that is embedded in their podcast, so it … doesn’t sit separately to the whole content. If the ad itself is kind of built into the podcast itself, being read by the host, you can’t just turn that off.
“We just know that podcasts are hugely popular with younger audiences and … they’re not easy to regulate in terms of age access and age gating that the government hopes to do. So I think it can create a bit of a blind spot in current policies that are built around platforms where audiences can be more clearly separated.”
This tightening of restrictions must also be applied across social media platforms, she added, as she warned that content creators and influencers may also find ways to share wagering content via platforms such as Instagram, X and others.
“We know that if we leave gaps in gambling regulation, the industry doesn’t hesitate to just move into those gaps,” she said.
The question of protection
Earlier this month, Albanese explained during his speech at the National Press Club that the ongoing crackdown on gambling advertisements forms part of the government’s commitment to maintaining a balance between “letting adults have a punt if they want to, but making sure our children don’t see betting ads everywhere they look.”
However, the efficacy of the partial ban was placed in the spotlight last week after a new report published by the Office of Impact Analysis (OIA) found that the measure would only reduce the amount wagered annually by AU$62.7m (£33m) – a decline of approximately 0.8%.
In the report, the OIA stated that the advertising restrictions will impact 2,461 industry members – including betting companies, broadcasters, podcasters and streaming services.
But for Independent Senator David Pocock, he noted that the current inclusion of gambling advertisements across popular podcasts shows how “this predatory industry innovates and pivots quickly to target new mediums and markets”. In his view, more needs to be done.
He said: “Protecting Australians, especially children and young people, from gambling advertising on popular online platforms from podcasts to Spotify to YouTube seems almost unworkable under the current proposal.
“The government’s own analysis found that this partial ban is going to cost more to enforce and deliver less benefits to the nation.”
This was a view backed by Independent MP Kate Chaney, who said that the government’s reforms should reconsider where the responsibility to opt-out from wagering ads lies.
She added: “Calling it a ‘triple-lock’ makes it sound much more protective than it actually is – most families share streaming accounts and unless parents painstakingly go through each platform, website and streaming service and manually find and activate the opt-out options, gambling ads will continue to be seen.
“There is little real-world evidence to suggest an opt-out model will reduce the social, emotional and financial harms caused by gambling in Australia.”
The debate around the extent to which gambling advertisements are restricted across Australia continues to boil on, and it doesn’t look like that’ll change any time soon.
However, if the last few weeks are anything to go by, the calls for further restrictions appear to be gathering momentum – perhaps the days for which we might hear a betting advert in a podcast, or posted on social media, are numbered.
