Gambling is a problem because of advertising. To say otherwise is an insult

I wouldn’t mind a wager that the scripts for those lobbying the federal government not to ban gambling advertising outright are being written by the same people who produce the infernally annoying ads.

Have a multi on us, the lobbyists say. More ads, more gambling, more revenue all round, more money for local sport. Winners all ’round, or your money back.

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Of course, they don’t put it quite like that. In fact, it’s more like the Grim Reaper anti-AIDS ads of the 1980s: if you’re not prepared to use protection on us and our massively lucrative businesses and deals, you’ll be dead before you know it.

Disclaimer: Think what you’re really gambling with – our corporate influence.

Anyway, it’s working. Eighteen months ago, a federal government inquiry into online gambling chaired by the late Peta Murphy recommended phasing out ads over three years.

Promptly, the government got on with sitting on their hands. Despite agitation from the Greens and some of their own MPs, they’re still actively going nowhere.

In October, they said that there would be something by the end of the year. They didn’t say what year. But we’re at the end of this one in parliamentary terms and … nothing. Which for the gambling lobby, of course, is everything. It’s nil-nil, win-win.

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The messages are still mixed. Competition Minister Andrew Leigh told the ABC this week that the government could not muster the numbers in the Senate to enact reforms. Sports Minister Annika Wells said she was concerned about integrity on one hand, but also about the effect of bans or curbs on the viability of sport.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Back in October, it was different again. “The problem isn’t advertising, the problem is gambling,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told ABC radio. “The easy option is just to [ban ads] and not worry about the consequences for sporting codes, junior sport, the media.”

He’s wrong. Gambling is a problem because of advertising. They’re joined at the hip pocket. What is gambling advertising for, if not to grow gambling? And it does.

More gambling markets are available from more outlets and accessible in more ways than ever. Per capita, Australians lose more that way than any other country in the world. You don’t have to be Hugh Mackay to work out that some Australians end up in a hell of a mess because of it, and so do some of their families.

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Advertising is also intrinsically a problem in its sheer volume, mind-numbing repetition and relentless dumbing-down. Personally, this avalanche feels more like harassment than persuasion. But clearly it works well and often enough, or the bookies wouldn’t bother and the government wouldn’t bother to tiptoe around them.

There are two central precepts to the anti-ban lobby’s messaging. One is a con, the other a bluff.

The con is the implication that someone is trying to ban gambling outright. In parliament, Albanese said he did not want an “intrusion into people’s personal liberties” if they chose to gamble. This is wilfully obtuse. The ads are the intrusion, not the pastime, which is a choice (and sometimes becomes a compulsion).

In the same breath, Albanese said that the “connection between sport and gambling needs to be broken because sport should be enjoyed for what it is”. Um, PM, the ads promote the connection. The ads are the connection.

Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys.Credit: Dean Sewell

Albanese’s abettor-in-chief is Peter V’landys, who – whaddya know? – runs both racing in NSW and rugby league generally. V’landys protests that “these people want to run everybody’s lives and force their will upon a majority of people who will never have a gambling problem and who enjoy a flutter”.

No one is trying to stop anyone from having a flutter. They’re trying to stop corporate bookmakers and their mass media partners who want to force their will upon a majority of people by ramming their advertising down our throats.

“The nanny state ideology has significant ramifications on the funding of junior sport,” added V’landys.

Here is the bluff. The professional sporting codes will survive a tightening, even a ban. So will the media. The same doomsday argument was advanced when tobacco advertising was banned. Sports and media not only survived, but thrived as never before. Giving up smoking was good for them. So was cutting down on drinking.

Gambling advertising is also intrinsically a problem in its sheer volume, mind-numbing repetition and relentless dumbing-down.

Disclaimer: What’s gambling advertising really costing you?

So is the most specious claim is that a restriction on advertising will rebound on junior – that is, non-professional – sport. It’s a classic scare campaign. It works from the false implication, much loved of the AFL, that professional sport funds junior and local sport.

It does not. It could; there are enough millions and billions washing around in the system. But take the AFL as an example. It subsidises Auskick and pays for some pathways from junior to pro sport.

It puts some money into grassroots footy. Last year, the AFL made a big song and dance about guaranteeing that “not less than 10 per cent” of its “assessable” revenue annually would go to community football. That sounds impressive, but amounts to the price of one football for every two registered players.

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The fact is that the AFL is the game’s custodian, but overwhelmingly funds it only at the pro level. Community sport by and large funds itself, by massive communal effort. To imply that gambling advertising is their lifeblood is an insult to those who turn themselves inside out to pay for and run local sport, many exhausting their own funds of time, energy and goodwill. And then go home to a blizzard of gambling ads.

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