Australia set to partially ban TV gambling ads, roll out an online gambling ads ban

The Albanese government has finally caved in after months of public pressure involving celebrities, medical experts, gambling hawks, politicians, and regular people, with the overwhelming majority supporting a ban on TV gambling advertising, Sky News reported.

Australia finally caves and agrees to ban gambling ads - almost

However, the new rules are not necessarily chalked up as a win for the no-ads camp. The Labor Party government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is walking a tightrope, after it confirmed that it would partially ban gambling advertising from the TV as early as 2026, leaving many observers exasperated.

Yet, the Prime Minister has offered a fig leaf by suggesting an almost immediate ban on online gambling advertisements instead. This may seem like a well-balanced position, but there has been criticism of such a move even before the ban was formally suggested.

Particularly, the Australian Medical Association has complained that anything short of a complete ban on TV gambling ads would fail to achieve any meaningful effect, calling it "no ban at all."

The proposal that the government has hammered out is as such. Although it would take two years for a TV gambling ad ban to take hold, advertisements on social media sites and online venues will be prohibited almost right away.

A previous suggestion by Labor MP Peta Murphy to enact a blanket ban on advertisement, like some jurisdictions around the world, and prominently Italy, has mostly gone unheeded.

Although this is progress of some sort, the criticism of failing to act more decisively is going to haunt the Labor government at a time when the country is enjoying unprecedented support from the public against the gambling industry.

The Prime Minister’s cabinet has repeatedly insisted that a ban on gambling advertisements would leave the entire ecosystem of sports and free TV connected to these promotional materials in disarray.

Qualms about gambling harm and missing finances

These claims have been countered by belligerent MPs who have argued that levying tech giants with higher taxes would most likely plug the financial deficit. They are most likely wrong, as taxing the tech industry in an ad-hoc manner to patch up financial gaps has proven slippery at best.

In the meantime, the Communications Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has confirmed that at this point, the government was not looking to set up a national gambling regulator to try and overtake the load of governing the sprawling gambling industry.

More details about the ban and other aspects of the changing regulatory climate in Australia are forthcoming. A previously proposed 2% levy on gambling companies’ revenues is also unlikely to pass.

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