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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
Charlie Horner (00:01.42)
Australia's Parliament has passed the Interactive Gambling Amendment Gambling Reform Bill twenty twenty six, which brings forward sweeping reforms to advertising regulations, including a national opt out system.
Charlie Horner (00:21.494)
It's weird in it's it's just the the intro it it keeps doing it on. weird. I'll go again. Thanks.
Ted Orme-Claye (00:28.298)
It's a cool room though. Is that a Clash record behind you?
Charlie Horner (00:33.398)
It's a clash poster, yeah.
Ted Orme-Claye (00:36.326)
That looks cool man, retro.
Ted Orme-Claye (00:41.738)
You
Charlie Horner (00:44.982)
Australia's Parliament has passed the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2026, which brings forward sweeping reforms to advertising regulations, including a national opt-out system, restrictions on sports sponsorships and celebrity ambassadorial roles. A separate bill that also passed Parliament states that the cost of implementing some of those measures will be covered by the regulated sector. Minister of Communication, Annika Wells, hails the move as a big win for Anthony Albanese's government.
stating that it will deliver meaningful protections for Australians experiencing gambling related harm, including relief on the bombardment of wagering advertisements in sport and strong restrictions on predatory inducements. But for some, the reforms don't go far enough. Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, the creator of Positionless Marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and to discuss
The all all the latest from Australia with me today is our editor at large, Ted Menmure, and editor of SBC News, Ted Orm Clay. Ted how are you doing?
Ted Menmuir (01:52.955)
Very well Charlie, we're going close out the week with this odds report but yeah, looking forward to my tango with Ted.
Charlie Horner (02:02.168)
Hmm. Yeah, brilliant. We always always look forward to a good two Ted Tango. Ted O C, how are you?
Ted Menmuir (02:07.492)
You
Ted Orme-Claye (02:08.138)
Yep, very good, thank you. Yeah, always ready to tango with Ted, as we say. I think we should, that's gonna be the name of a new podcast, I think we should do a specific branded one. The audiences will love it.
Charlie Horner (02:21.805)
Yeah, I'm not
Ted Menmuir (02:23.574)
or just hire someone not called Ted.
Ted Orme-Claye (02:26.022)
Yeah.
Charlie Horner (02:29.57)
It won't catch on. I don't think that'll catch on. Let let's just s launch the spin-off. anyway, let's jump into things because yeah, back on back on the Aussie beat, we've we've talked about this bill a couple of times with with our friend of the show, Jamie Nettleton from from Addison's Partners. But we've had the news that the gambling reform bill has passed in Australian Parliament. So Ted O'C, how about you give us an overview of some of the reforms that have been included in the bill?
Ted Orme-Claye (02:57.96)
Well, so, you know, it's pretty much the same as when it was first suggested to Parliament in April, you know, that we've discussed on the podcast before, that we discussed with Jeremy Nettleton, as you mentioned, Charlie. Really, there's two, I think...
There's only really been two major changes since it was introduced and this was after some negotiation and a bit of deal making between the governing Labour Party, which is led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, apologies to anyone in Australia, this is if I've butchered your leader's name there, and the opposition in the Liberal National Coalition.
One of the main add-ons was the creation of this opt-in service for online advertising. Opt-out, sorry, the opt-in element, something we'll get into later, apologies. An opt-out system for online advertising where, as the name suggests, everyone above 18 will still be able to see online gambling ads unless you specifically opt-out of them. And then the other add-on was a kind
of an amendment of one of the key measures which is a ban on sports betting advertising during sports broadcasts between 5 a.m. in the morning and 8.30 p.m. at night. After a bit of to and fro I think from what I understand at least between Labour and the Liberal National Coalition they've extended they've expanded that to include online streaming as well.
But other than that, all of the reforms really are more or less the same as what we discussed with Jamie a couple of weeks ago, Charlie. Advertising is, the bulk of it is around advertising. I'd say like two thirds of it are really. Does that ban on...
Ted Orme-Claye (04:50.122)
betting ads on it during live sports between that time frame they're to start that's been stopped between 15 minutes before and five minutes after There's a ban on the use of athletes celebrities and influencers in betting ads quite similar to the role model band that we've seen in the Netherlands obviously we've talked about quite a lot and I guess kind of similar to the cap code in the UK, you know the whole thing of You're not allowed to have people in your adverts who maybe have a strong appeal to young people. It's kind of similar
to that. A ban on betting advertising on the radio during school drop-off and pick-up times. indirect inducements is an interesting one. There's a ban on direct inducement marketing for the first 14 days after a customer has created an online gambling account with a company and
for three months after someone has deregistered from the BetStop self-exclusion service. So yeah, the vast majority of it focuses on online.
gambling advertising in general. There's a couple of other things. They want to increase the powers of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the ACMA, when it comes to dealing with illegal gambling, blocking platforms chiefly. They want to give it more powers around that. There's a ban on foreign matched lotteries and online Kenno products as well. But yeah, the vast majority is focused on advertising, which really
has been one of the biggest talking points in lot of the conversations around Australian gambling reform. think, like we said before, it's certainly the most visible one because advertising is just what everyone sees, isn't it? It's what's most front and centre for the public. So it's one of the easiest ways for the government to get a victory, I think, when they're under pressure to do something about gambling in Australia, which is something that lot of campaigners and MPs are concerned about the societal impacts of.
Ted Menmuir (06:38.404)
Mm-hmm.
Charlie Horner (06:39.778)
Yeah.
Charlie Horner (06:54.542)
Well, there's so many measures in there, Ted, so many restrictions that I'm surprised that it's even possible for people to say that this bill hasn't gone far enough. yeah, lot lots in there. but this has been a a really hot button issue for for Australia, Ted you know, the bill's been in in the works since March April time, and I think there's been plans to implement such measures for
Ted Orme-Claye (07:04.266)
Ha
Charlie Horner (07:21.55)
You know, three years going back to to the Peter Murphy report. Why why is gambling advertising such a big issue in Australia? And and I guess as a follow up to that, why is the government putting so much political capital in into this move?
Ted Menmuir (07:24.014)
Mm-hmm.
Ted Menmuir (07:36.313)
You see, I'm not sure it is. And I think that the way that proceedings have played out, this has been gambling advertising and the reforms and the rejection of the Peter Murphy report by Anthony Albanese.
It's been used as a stick to kind of punish and beat up on labor to slow down its agenda and to actually kind of paint that party as kind of politically inept. This was a mandate that should have been fixed two years ago and when Anthony Albanese interjected at the final minute before sign-off he went against the labor ranks.
and it caused definite rifts between his party and its mandate and governance. Again, I believe you're absolutely right when you say that this has actually been thoroughly thought out. There are lots of restrictions that will be applied to markets, lots of new standards, and it actually kind of fulfills that mandate of Australia implementing at a federal level
a framework to govern gambling advertising that will be applied across all six territorial states and that kind of changes the engagement with consumers.
But however, fixing gambling advertising isn't kind of the panacea to all the problems in Australian gaming. There are still structural elements that need to be fixed between how, you know, a federal framework and state regulators and also the oversight. This is just one area that I think has been kind of fixated on for two years.
Ted Menmuir (09:24.658)
It's had all forms of kind of proposals from prohibition, from the total ban on sponsorships, right? From even kind of limiting markets of you kind of high risk too. So the consultation has been thorough. I just don't think that the determination anyone accepts. And I think that is where kind of the blowback is coming from.
Charlie Horner (09:46.893)
Yeah, we'll we'll get into this much more in the back half in terms of the debates around how we can r reach resolutions when it comes to these big deals. But I think I jump I'm just eager to explore what this deal tells us about where Australia's gambling regulation is is is going or what direction it's heading in. To to me it seems like it's it shows that the federal government is very happy to get stuck in, a at least on on certain elements of the industry, particularly on advertising in the in this instance. Whereas Australia's
typically being a state by state nation when it comes to to gambling. Ted O C what what do you think the sort of takeaways are from from this political deal?
Ted Menmuir (10:19.46)
Mm-hmm.
Ted Orme-Claye (10:30.42)
There's a quote that I saw on ABC News that I've referred to in my article today that I think really sums us up. It from a Liberal MP, I believe Simon Kennedy, who...
Charlie Horner (10:43.254)
And liberal MPs liberal party being the opposition, we should just add as well.
Ted Menmuir (10:47.066)
Yep
Ted Orme-Claye (10:48.112)
One of the obvious is that there's a liberal national coalition that's between the Liberal Party and the National Party. Yeah. And he basically said that he voted in favor of it and basically said it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing and it's doing the job. his summary was at the end of the day, politics is all about compromise. And I think really that's what this bill
really is of, I think it's a bill of compromise in lots of different ways because throughout this whole debate we've seen just how many different stakeholders and different opinion holders, I guess we could say, there are involved in this and these are all the different people that the the Albanese government has had to factor in. There was a conversation back in November
where was expected that the government would do something around gambling advertising in late 2025. think a lot of the campaigners had the hopes that this would be a full ban on gambling advertising, which was one of the flagship measures of the Murphy Report back in 2023. That ultimately didn't happen. And I think one of the reasons for that is because Labour had to contend with the fact that they've got a lot of people putting pressure on them to do this, but they also need to recognize
the significance of the sports broadcasters in Australia who count gambling advertising as a very lucrative sort of income. They obviously also then generate a lot of money for the economy and the state and so on. There's a significance of gambling advertising to the sports clubs themselves as well. I think some have been distancing themselves from the industry a bit, particularly in the NRL. But you know, a bit like back here in the UK, gambling sponsorships and so on and deals.
are very lucrative for these clubs and Labour had to kind of reach a compromise there back in 2025 and ultimately delayed their decision on this and then if you look at the bill itself, they've clearly taken a lot of inspiration from the Murphy report but they've not
Ted Orme-Claye (12:58.948)
gone ahead with implementing the full thing because that would then not be politically acceptable to a lot of other key stakeholders in the Australian society and Australian economics and so on. And then the people who were, a lot of people in the Liberals in particular who might have said we think this should have gone further have then had to make a compromise on their own beliefs and go well we want some sort of restrictions and advertising.
Ted Menmuir (13:09.625)
Yeah.
Ted Orme-Claye (13:23.114)
if we vote for this we might not get the full picture that we want but we will get some of it. But as we're going to discuss later I think there's still a lot of people who feel let down by this.
Ted Menmuir (13:36.411)
I echo so much of what Ted just said, but going back to kind of this two, three year cycle.
in this two or three year debate, I still don't think that Australia has answered the fundamental flaw of the sector, which is it has no federal oversight on gambling and no federal commission. So yes, they've implemented changes where the ACMA has taken on a greater kind of oversight of, you know, payment standards, online laws, but still it's fragmented. There is literally kind of no
no debate or no kind of feedback between operators and state licenses and what gets fed back to the federal government. And you have all these kind of potholes in the regulatory structure spread across kind of six states.
Look, Australia is a functional gambling market, but it just has so many kind of fractures that are just easily fixable. And I think that in this kind of process of reforms, it never tackled the fundamental liability.
Charlie Horner (15:07.49)
No, that was r two really interesting points by both of you there, Ted. what I'm gonna have to gently disagree on though is the fact that politics is all about compromise. Have we learnt nothing from the 2020s? You're supposed to take a position, disagree with everyone and and perse you know, persecute everyone who disagrees with you, and just hope that everyone else comes on board. but on that note, we'll take a quick break and we'll come back and we'll talk about how we can make politics and gambling regulation.
Ted Menmuir (15:17.626)
You
Charlie Horner (15:36.62)
A little bit more nuanced.
Charlie Horner (15:57.965)
Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Now, as I said before the break, things are getting a little bit political when it comes to gambling advertising. It seems to be the major target of reformers all around the world when when it comes to the re regulation of gambling in different markets. Do we think that it's time that industry starts to make some concessions on marketing to to keep that regulation that is inevitable fair? Or do you think it's a case of if the industry gives an inch
Then the reformists and the opponents will will end up taking a mile. Ted O. C. what you think about this one?
Ted Orme-Claye (16:33.396)
do understand both points here and I get why people in the industry will be, have got the defences up. yeah, I do think that internationally, we look at Australia right now and then we look at discussions we're having in the UK as well. And it does seem that there's a lot of political hostility to the industry right now.
And I really think the industry needs to, we talked about this in the aftermath of the UK taxes last year and the aftermath of the budget.
And I think the industry does really need to do a bit of self-reflection and think about how did it get in this position and whether it's communications and the talking points it makes are really working. We keep seeing in the conversation around advertising, the big one is always, well, if we can't promote ourselves, then that gives an advantage to the black market. And it often seems to disregard a lot of the public concerns about the visibility of gambling, it's visibility to like,
children and young people and vulnerable people, concerns about the societal impact of it. We often hear about this conversation in the UK regarding adult gaming centers and their prevalence in more impoverished areas and working class communities. And I think the industry needs to try and
on a very fine line, think, between making its points, which are, you know, legitimate and we've seen in the Netherlands how things have gone wrong with clampdowns and advertising and that's then, there's a correlation there between that and increase in the black market. But also without just disregarding the fact that this is an industry that's high risk, that has a strong association with harm, that has to involve a huge amount of corporate responsibility and
Ted Orme-Claye (18:27.098)
and does ultimately lead to a lot of public concerns and you can't just brush those to one side with the anti-black market argument all the time, I don't think. You you look at Australia.
Ted Menmuir (18:29.508)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ted Orme-Claye (18:39.882)
is a very, very lucrative gambling market. think it is like a lot of markets. It's hard to get a full picture on some of the data around it. Some of the estimates I've seen are that the online market last year, online betting amounted to $2.8 billion. Some estimates reckon that it's going to be the market as a whole, the entire gambling industry will be worth about $15 billion Australian dollars by the early 2030s. That's all well and good for this industry being a very lucrative industry and good for the Australian state as well because it gets all the tax revenue.
you on that but to a lot of the public including the campaigners obviously they see that as not this is an industry that's really lucrative they see that as Australians losing money and that is fundamentally an image problem this industry is always going to have and it's going to be is a difficult one to reconcile with
in lot of these conversations about regulation and advertising even when it does have these legitimate arguments about its own regulation, its own standards in comparison to the illicit one.
Charlie Horner (19:41.647)
Mm-hmm. Look, Ted I'll bring you into this now because it it does seem like all around the world people are entrenched in in their different positions on reform. You know, the industry will say if you regulate us too much, the black market will win and therefore players will be less safe. But then the opponents will say that gambling is a public health issue and we should limit it and restrict it. Where do we find the nuances? Where where do we find the compromises? Or are we just gonna are we just gonna sort of keep being entrenched and keep
sort of shouting at each other on social media and newspaper columns.
Ted Menmuir (20:14.148)
Well, I think you've to kind of move away from that thinking and that kind of objective that it's about winning headlines. No, I think it's about, you know, progressing towards better platforms and platforms that can lead to change.
Looking at the Australia debate, because it's the one we're kind of analysing today, like yes, it's been, you know, two years of a very kind of marred process. But from today, I think that Australia will enter a better platform or step towards a better kind of platform. There will be federal protections on advertising. I've always kind of viewed Australia as very much, you know,
the chicken before the egg as in the way it kind of it's gone to tackle its gambling liabilities you know went head-on into the credit ban it went head-on into the advertising ban without kind of any kind of consultations done or looking to implement a federal authority to actually provide a guidance and to provide kind of feedback from the licenses there to the government to say look we've got a clear picture of
on the gambling economy, on gambling's engagement with the public, and the consumerism of gambling. There has been a fallout in Australian media in terms of just the level of coverage of gambling ads, and that needed an intervention. It happened way, way too late. And I think that every party, including the bookmakers, including the government, they're all kind of complicit.
in what fell out, right? But I think now at least they've got a platform to fix it.
Charlie Horner (22:03.589)
Yeah.
Ted Orme-Claye (22:03.818)
The media thing is really interesting, sorry to interrupt you Charlie, that's something I've noted myself as well Ted. I don't think, out of all the markets we cover, I don't think I've seen one where the topic of gambling regulation, topic of gambling advertising has been so fiercely covered by the media and so intently covered. The UK Gambling Act Review was not covered.
Ted Menmuir (22:12.6)
Yeah.
Ted Orme-Claye (22:25.742)
to half the extent that this whole discussion around gambling, advertising and Australian politics has been. It has been very interesting to observe.
Charlie Horner (22:37.58)
Yeah, it certainly has. And I think I think that you know, the the industry should look at where the the the political winds are blowing. And I think that in most cases reformers are kind of winning the argument in terms of trying to get n stricter regulation over the line. And I think it might be time for industry to come together and think about what a a framework, a realistic framework that keeps a healthy marketplace and and manages to to to to
curtail the black market would would look like. but I just want to finish on a on another story from Australia. because Entain, Ted OC, might face a class action lawsuit over its fast code system on in play betting. Tell us about what's what's happening here and how could how significant this could become for for Entain.
Ted Orme-Claye (23:30.154)
I don't think it's might. I think one has a class action has been lodged against the company in the Supreme Court of Victoria, but it's an interesting one because yeah, like you say, it relates to the fast code system. In-play betting in Australia is a bit of a mixed bag. think it's, from what I remember, it's entirely legal for horse racing, but you can't do it
online for sports you can however do it in on all sporting products, racing or other sports whether in retail shops so it's a bit mixed and also it's entirely legal via the telephone so it's very quite antiquated in that regard the telephone betting is still kind one of the main channels for that
Entained for its Ladbrokes and Ned's brands has been running a service called Fastcode where you
I think the way it works is you request your bet, the in-play bet you want to make, you get given a code for that and then you then call up and speak to a company representative who organises that for you. There's been some people who lost money placing bets on this over, I can't remember what the timeframe was now, it was in early 2020s I think.
And they are arguing that they should have their money reimbursed because this system was violating the prohibition of in-play betting online. In comparison to things like that OzTrack investigation that's been going on to entain, it's obviously comparatively minor. I think it's just interesting because it shines a light on the...
Ted Menmuir (25:16.42)
you
Ted Orme-Claye (25:21.386)
kind of the lack of clarity around in-play betting in Australia.
given how modern the industry now is and all the different channels available to customers. And I guess that really does sort of relate to some of the things we've been talking about today and regarding Australia's gambling legislation, it dates back to 2001. Does the whole system require an update? the industry, politicians, the consumers, and the regulator authorities have a clearer picture of how the country's legislation
regulations relate to the modern dynamics of the industry. Yeah, I think that's the most interesting observation I think I've made from that.
Charlie Horner (26:08.002)
Hm. Yeah, Ted what what do you make of this case and what do you think it says about sort of the regulatory pressure on on operators in in the country? yeah, what do you what do you think?
Ted Menmuir (26:21.05)
In terms of, I just think it's going to be kind of a period of greater kind of scrutiny on Australia's operators and scrutiny not only in terms of this fallout but in terms of kind of overall conduct. I always feel that with the Australian market there's always kind of a fragmented view with interpretation of the actual rules.
This is another case that's going to highlight that in terms of what gets given back to the courts. And also that kind of interpretation of like what is a call to bet. This is nothing new. We had this, I think we had court cases against Ladbrokes and against Bet 365 and Unibet spanning about four years ago. And again, I think this is another case that's kind of re-emerged.
It's also, what it kind of highlights is that just if you don't fix...
these regulations, right? And if you don't kind of accept the terms of the market and where the players are going through and how they place bets, you're always going to have kind of a legal fallout. I don't think that the Australian courts want to handle this as well. It's just going to create kind of another backlog. We've seen this in other markets where you have to kind of redefine and put kind of remit on what a betting product is, what wagering is, what GGR is. It could open up some messy, messy doors for for stake
That's all there is.
Charlie Horner (27:53.101)
Yeah, well, look, I think Australia is firmly establishing itself as one of the stories of the summer. so I'm sure we'll we'll come back and talk about Australia for one reason or another very soon on the show. But for now, Ted, Ted, thanks ever so much for joining me today. And thanks to Optimo for supporting the show as always, and to our listeners, thanks for tuning in to today's episode of iGaming Daily. And come back tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news.
Ted Orme-Claye (28:05.364)
Yeah.