New research shows Australia is lagging behind Europe and other parts of the world in regulating online wagering, as gambling reform advocates push for the federal government to quickly bring in regulation.
According to analysis from the Alliance for Gambling Reform, Australia is far behind a broad range of countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain in curbing gambling advertisements or online gambling.
In Germany since 2021, online casinos, poker and virtual slot operators are banned from advertising on TV, radio and the internet between 6am and 9pm, and the country has announced a mandatory deposit limit of €1,000 (A$1,640) a month across all forms of gambling.
A parliamentary inquiry into online gambling and its associated harms is due to report back in the coming weeks. The committee’s chair, the Labor MP Peta Murphy, has previously said the inquiry’s final report would consider “what other jurisdictions have and are doing to reduce gambling harm”.
The chief executive of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, Carol Bennett, said so far reform in Australia to target online gambling, advertising and products aimed at children had been piecemeal and slow.
“It’s at a time when the community is really screaming out for some change in this area,” Bennett told Guardian Australia. “They’ve now started implementing and putting in place the things that are way overdue, long overdue. We’re playing catch-up.”
Since coming to government last year, Labor has announced BetStop – a self-exclusion service – as well as banning the use of credit cards for online gambling and a new classification for games with lootboxes to be M15+ at a minimum. None of these measures have been implemented.
In Senate estimates last week, the Australian Communications and Media Authority revealed the launch of BetStop had been delayed from the end of March after the company that was contracted to deliver the system went into voluntary administration. The regulator is in negotiations with another company to pick up the remainder of the project, and says once that is completed the system should be up and running quickly
Bennett said she hoped once the online gambling inquiry reported back the government would act quickly to develop a national strategy. This would look at regulatory gaps and the existing “patchwork legislation” to address issues causing “significant harms”.
She said the lack of regulation meant companies were targeting young people with gambling-like games such as online poker machines.
“Parents with kids that are accessing [these] games are seeing that these games are no longer just innocent fun, that they’re actually starting to incorporate elements of gambling because they grooming the next generation of losers,” she said.
