Gambling advertising is everywhere and has insinuated itself into Australia’s major sports. Photo: File.
It seems appropriate on this day, Good Friday, to talk about gambling, because after Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the Cross, they threw dice for his clothes.
Today, many Australians will reflect on this and all the other episodes in Christ’s procession to Calvary and his agony on the Cross. But many others will be betting on horses and football matches, or putting money through poker machines at their local club or pub.
Whether you are a believer or not, there is no doubt that the punt, in person or online, has reached monstrous proportions, aided by the internet, smartphone technology, poor government regulation, and ubiquitous and pernicious advertising campaigns.
The regulator of these online gambling giants is a six-person board in the Northern Territory, whose low taxes and fees attract them like bees to a honey pot.
Alliance for Gambling Reform (AGR) advocate Tim Costello has called for a national regulator.
“Bookies will always go to the place where the regulation is weakest, where the jurisdiction is smallest,” he told the ABC.
“[It] explains why Australia has the greatest per capita gambling losses in the world.”
Australians lose $25 billion a year, but governments reap $7 billion a year in taxes.
Australia already had a strong gambling culture, but now it is all pervasive and creating new generations of fingertip punters seduced by the lure of easy money and the cool thrill of the punt.
The casual flutter through government-controlled betting shops (the TAB) has given way to a proliferation of online bookmaking sites that deploy some of the wittiest and finely targeted ads ever devised across all media.
Long after tobacco advertising was banished from prime time sport and child viewing times, these clever ads pepper sporting broadcasts, followed these days by government warning ads – ‘chances are you’re about to lose’ – attempting to mitigate the damage.
But the gambling ads should not have been allowed to take root, and now they are here, the industry is fighting tooth and nail to keep them on air, because they work.
Aiding it are the fellow travellers – big sport and nervous politicians worried that the loss of advertising will impact lucrative TV rights deals, free-to-air broadcasts and even the viability of the codes themselves.
Most Australians see the sense of getting the ads off our screens, but our politicians remain susceptible to the scare campaigns about the loss of claimed public benefits.
Some also see gambling as an individual choice, the same as how much sugar you might consume, even though both cannot just be bad for you, but catastrophic, not to mention the costs to the community and the health system.
Poker machines are money spinners for clubs, but the gambling harm can be great. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
It’s an argument that has also played out in communities such as the ACT battling to rid themselves of the ingeniously addictive dopamine hit that is the poker machine.
Clubs argue that pokies help pay for the services members enjoy and the benefits that flow to things such as community sport.
The ACT Government has been trying to reduce the number of poker machines in the Territory and has a goal of cutting them to 1000 by 2045.
It has been encouraging clubs to diversify their income streams, and an imminent inquiry into the sector’s future will look at how they might exploit their most important asset – land – for appropriate housing or aged care.
The inquiry will also look at what regulatory or tax changes could support them to diversify.
If this is about making it easier for clubs to pursue development on land that was often gifted to them as concessional leases, then the government is on a collision course with community groups worried about the loss of green space or windfall gains to clubs wanting to do things that have little to do with their reason for being.
There are already battles over golf courses attempting to do this in Nicholls and Red Hill.
Last year, the Burns Club in Kambah lost a bid to relocate its car park by taking off a slice of the adjacent playing fields to free up land for development, such as a childcare centre.
The Canberra Services Club site in Manuka has been growing weeds since the 2011 fire that razed the club building. The club has plans for a hotel that involve a lease variation, but the local community remains sceptical.
The government is eyeing land everywhere for new housing to meet its goal of 30,000 new dwellings by 2030.
An easing of planning and tax settings might be the trade-off to move clubs away from poker machines, reduce gambling harm, and generate new housing in various forms.
There are winners in this approach, but there also will be losers.
That is the devilishly wicked dilemma that Australians have now found themselves in when it comes to gambling.
