A step closer to protecting our kids from online gambling ads
The recommendation to ban all advertising of online gambling products follows AMA submission and AMA President’s appearance at parliamentary inquiry.
A parliamentary inquiry into online gambling has delivered its report ‘You win some, you lose some more’, in which it recommends a total ban on the advertising of online gambling products.
The AMA has for years advocated on the risks of online gambling products, including a submission to the inquiry last year and an appearance by AMA President Professor Steve Robson before the parliamentary inquiry in March this year.
Professor Robson told the inquiry the “landscape of gambling has become much more complex and our regulations need to keep up. We’re now dealing with many more online gambling platforms and users, amid the entrenched commercial relationship between gambling and sport, ease of access to online gambling for under 18s, lax regulatory frameworks around advertising and rapidly evolving digital technology”.
He welcomed the recommendations this week saying there had been “an explosion of online gambling and associated advertising, which is insidious in its nature of targeting young Australians and exploiting gambling’s commercial relationship with sport”.
“Sport is Australia’s favourite pastime, but it has been infiltrated by gambling companies with advertisements that manipulate vulnerable audiences to gamble online.”
