Australian families are losing loved ones to gambling. The industry’s ‘I know nothing’ defence beggars belief

Luke Bateman, former NRL player and reformed problem gambler, centre, told the Senate inquiry he attended a private Gold Coast event hosted by a gambling company at which senior figures took illicit drugs with clients. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Readers of a certain age will recall the Hogan’s Heroes TV series with affection and the implausibility of the Sergeant Schultz defence: “I know nothing.”

But that’s pretty much what the multibillion-dollar gambling industry giants would have us believe.