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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
Fernando Noodt (00:02.964)
The Labour government of Australia has been accused of sneakily publishing its response to the online gambling reforms sought by Peta Murphy. What should have been considered a routine government response has instead triggered backlash as Labour took two years to file its position on an inquiry completed in 2024. PM Anthony Albanese continues to deflect criticism over gambling reforms
shifting tone by stating that his administration wanted to unify the fragmented gambling laws across Australian territories, but few are buying these excuses. Welcome to another episode of iGamingDaily where we will discuss what's going on in Australia, these new developments. I'm Fernando Not, Media Manager for SVC and your host for today's episode, where I'm joined by the great Ted and Ted for another Ted and Ted Talking Time.
on iGamingDaily, Ted Mamier, how are you today?
Ted Menmuir (00:58.584)
Very well, Fernando. I'm in my room and I think in the past 10 minutes I've watched every weather variant hit London. So, it's in strange.
Fernando Noodt (01:09.662)
It's like one of those time-lapse scenes in the movies where the weather goes by really fast through the window. And laughing there on the background. Ted OC, Ted O'Clay, editor for SVC News. How are you today?
Ted Menmuir (01:13.598)
Yeah. Yes, apocalyptic, yeah.
Ted Orme-Claye (01:15.944)
Yeah.
Ted Orme-Claye (01:27.048)
I'm pretty good, thank you Fernando. The weather in Manchester's not actually too bad, it's sunny at the moment, it was raining earlier, but in London it sounds as chaotic as things are over at Downing Street I'd imagine at the moment actually Ted, to make a of a lazy topical jibe there.
Ted Menmuir (01:44.902)
We are talking about a different Labour Party. Spelt differently too, so.
Ted Orme-Claye (01:47.92)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's clarify that we should clarify that yeah, yeah, yeah
Fernando Noodt (01:54.943)
Right.
And then nobody asked, but in Buenos Aires it's sunny as well, or as I call it, laundry weather. So yeah, there's that. But now let's shift into our podcasting selves, into our analyst profiles. But before that, let's thank Optimove, the creator of Positionsless Marketing and number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. I'm proud supporter of this.
podcast. So Australia team, so we are back there. At last, there is more clarity on the reform package labor intends to bring into force from 2027 from next year. let's let's let's do a breakdown of what this is all about.
Ted Menmuir (02:46.446)
Okay, so I guess I'll begin. Yes, the Labour government has provided more clarity on its package of reforms that will be introduced from 2027. And these are kind of prioritizing online gambling. The Albanese government will introduce a broad package of federal gambling reforms, including restrictions on wagering advertising during live sports by introducing a five hour watershed.
And putting in the still hasn't really kind of clarified it, but applying kind of restriction on gambling advertising in stadiums or on team uniforms and tighter controls on online engagements and online, um, online bonuses. The, uh, in terms of safer gambling and, um, the
I believe we will move to expand the best of self-exclusion scheme to cover retail and online disciplines. And then finally, there are kind of technical reforms that see a full ban on online Kino and a tighter regulation on the sale of lottery style products and lottery draws.
What the Albanese government says is that it's finally beginning to of fulfill its manifesto pledge to add restrictions on gambling and to impose kind of some federal controls on the gambling sector.
Fernando Noodt (04:10.762)
So one of the things that I find pretty curious so far is that labor is actually going to apply these reforms, but it's still being criticized by, like, on its response to the Murphy Inquiry. So why is this that the government is actually moving to do something and then is getting criticized for it?
Ted Orme-Claye (04:34.74)
I'll jump in here first, I'd imagine Ted has some good insight into this one as well. So firstly, I think it's the timeliness of it. The Murphy Report was published a few years ago now, I believe 2022 it was published. It was the last parliamentary inquiry and white paper kind of thing.
Ted Menmuir (04:51.37)
Yup.
Ted Orme-Claye (05:00.958)
written by and published by DNP Peter Murphy before she passed away. And it contained 31 different recommendations for gambling reform in Australia covering a lot of different bases. A gradual phased-in ban on advertising was one of the flagship ones. It's one of the ones that I think has caught the most attention, but there were a number of others in there. I think the fact that it's taken...
what's that, four years roughly since the implementation, since the passage of the report, the publishing of the report, I'll get my words right eventually guys, I apologise. The fact it's taken four years since the publishing of the report and the implementation of any measures from it is really what's caught a lot of criticism. Obviously things in government, in any democracy do take a while, but...
I think yeah, it's just the fact that it's just one, really one measure, which is the advertising one out of 31. And the fact it's taken so long to do this is what's caught a lot of criticism. Not only that, I think the timing of the announcement, I've seen one or two comments from Australia from the gambling reform advocacy side of things who were not too happy with that. The fact that it was announced around the same time as the Australian national budget, which I think some people think was kind of to overshadow
The advertising announcement, yeah that's caught some flak. David Pocock who's an independent MP and a former Australian National Rugby Union player as it happens is one of the more vocal voices for gambling reform in Australia. He's very vocal about advertising, the prevalence of gaming machines in pubs known as pokies in Australia and he criticised the government.
timing of the announcement around the budget is a cowardly decision. So yeah, we're seeing a lot of the same criticisms here really. I think it's just the amount of time it's taken the government to do this and the fact that it's still not making good on the full package of the Murphy report, which also included things like the creation of a sole national gambling regulator in Australia, similar to how we have the gambling commission in the UK, the KSA in the Netherlands, the new regulator in Ireland and so
Ted Orme-Claye (07:22.491)
on. The fact that the full package still isn't there, that's what people are annoyed about.
Fernando Noodt (07:30.335)
And of course there's a lot of critics for the decision by the Albanese administration and they actually claim, some claim, that he's changing course and effectively buried, sorry, looks like you're getting your words right and I'm not, Ted. But let's start over again and say that critics are actually saying that Albanese is changing course and has effectively buried the Murphy reforms.
Ted Orme-Claye (07:50.803)
You
Fernando Noodt (07:59.905)
tell them, you think this is accurate? Do you think this is true?
Ted Menmuir (08:04.385)
Okay, so what happened this week is that following a two-year kind of standstill, the Labour government presented its response. the criticism has been to, did the Labour government fulfill the mandate or fulfill, yeah, the mandate of the recommendations of Peter Murphy, who overall wanted to stop...
the normalisation of gambling in Australian society, which she viewed had become kind of out of control as Australia showed the highest spending per consumer on gambling of any kind of Western market. And what she formally kind of presented were kind of the five pillars in which she thought the...
this mandate could be executed. The number one was a phased ban on gambling advertising, which Ted spoke about, and the second one was implementing the federal authority. The third was kind of creating unified rules and idea on boarding of players in online gambling. And the fourth one was for federal authorities to begin a coordination to create a national strategy on harm prevention, mirroring what the UK has.
And the fifth one was just to revise kind of the laws on the criminality of unlicensed gambling. So she said those five pillars should lead to better kind of gambling regime for Australia that does not normalise gaming. And I think the responses certainly kind of media headlines. Labour then kind of reacted and said, look, yes, we understand.
We understand that Murphy presented her recommendations via an inquiry. We have implemented our changes in that spirit and we have tackled the majority of issues that she did put forward.
Fernando Noodt (10:04.138)
So can we say that the government's response was effectively critical of Murphy's recommendation, viewing them as too extreme for Labour to implement during its first term in office?
Ted Menmuir (10:19.724)
Okay, so I think here again as we play the game, she said, look, Labour came back and said, we're applying this in the spirit of Peter Murphy. And that to many, that was kind of viewed as a kind of cynical framing as the mandate or what Labour's package of reforms do not carry her two headline measures of the advertising ban on the phased via three years and implementation of a federal authority.
If I'm reflective of this, think kind of Labour knows that it did fumble the two-year mandate to kind of oversee and actually decide on which direction it was going to take. And I think you can't really play the game, the blame game on this. I don't know what Ted feels about this.
Ted Orme-Claye (11:09.231)
Yeah, it's difficult to really play the blame game on it. I'd imagine the Labour administration have been kind of cautious about pushing through too many of their reforms at once for a couple of reasons. There's lots of different stakeholders involved in this, not least the gaming companies themselves. Australia is a hugely valuable gaming market and they will contribute a pretty hefty amount in taxes. So the government are probably looking at that and thinking,
Ted Menmuir (11:27.02)
Mm-hmm.
Ted Orme-Claye (11:39.141)
why don't we have a, need to think about the wider macroeconomic impact, similar to the discussions we've had in Britain around taxation and so on last year. From what I've read as well, there was a bit of a feeling that the Labour government delayed the implementation of any of the recommendations around advertising ahead of the election that we had in Australia, we a general election not long ago. And that was because the government were
Ted Menmuir (12:05.238)
Mm-hmm.
Ted Orme-Claye (12:09.021)
We're wanting to avoid a potential public showdown with broadcasters, many of whom count gambling advertising as a really significant source of revenue. know, Australia is a very sports mad country, rugby league, cricket, Australian rules football, soccer, football, whatever you want to call it. You know, all these sports are very widely viewed there. as you know, it's...
that there's a lot of value for the betting companies in reaching these audiences. There's a lot of value for the broadcasters in getting the advertising revenue from that. So that I think the government wanted to kind of avoid potentially having a row between these different stakeholders ahead of an election, one which they then did win pretty comfortably, I think. there's that to consider as well. They've been balancing a lot of different stakeholder opinions here, but...
The stakeholders that are the gambling reform advocates in Australia, which is quite a big lobby there. There's a lot of sentiment behind it. They're not satisfied, they're quite frustrated with what they see as slow progress and it not being taken seriously enough.
Fernando Noodt (13:18.356)
We gave you the facts, now we're gonna give you the reaction from Australia in general, the general public, the politicians, everything, but first we're gonna do a very quick ad break and we will be right back with more iGaming Daily.
AD BREAK
And we're back with more iGaming Daily to continue discussing what's going on in Australia with the gambling reform, the decision by the Albanese administration to move forward. But in Australia, the gambling reform campaigners have some of the loudest voices in politics. So we already know that. But what concrete actions do they actually want to see imposed on the sector? Ted, let's see, would you want to take this one?
Ted Orme-Claye (14:27.89)
Well obviously first and foremost is one we've already discussed, the imposition of a phased in ban on advertising. generally I think that the call is for it occur over a three year period or something like that and eventually remove gambling's visibility in public spaces on the television and so on. We also mentioned the creation of a national regulator. Australia's
kind of regulatory framework is quite fragmented in comparison to other countries with such a large and well established betting and gaming market. The Australian Communications and Media Authority, the ACMA, is currently like the government body that has a nationwide remit over gambling. We've seen them issue some enforcement actions this year against Tabcorp and Entain, two of the biggest companies in the country.
Ted Menmuir (15:16.224)
Mm-hmm.
Ted Orme-Claye (15:26.418)
But then you have the state regulations and I think it looks like the Northern Territory Racing Commission is kind of seen as almost a de facto online gambling regulator by some for the whole country. And then you've also got obviously the regulators of let's say New South Wales and Victoria and so on. So a lot of advocates for reform want to see
A sole gambling regulator, like I said earlier, similar to the UK's gambling commission, for example, set up with its only objective being to regulate the industry and to not have it, not like the ACMA where it's got a variety of different objectives, you know what mean, as a regulator, as a watchdog. There's also calls for the creation of a national gambling harm strategy.
I mentioned earlier how Australia's got a very big and well established market. It's one that was also quite similar to the UK in that it's got some of the same actors involved, Bet365, Entain, Flutter Entertainment, which owns sports bet out there. But it's also a country that does have some higher rates of gambling harm, think, in comparison to the UK according to some statistics. It's unusually higher than other similar nations.
and that's created a lot of public concern about how has this happened. So there's calls for a national strategy around this as well. Those are the three biggest measures that I can think of off the top of my head right now.
Fernando Noodt (16:59.73)
And Labour of course insists it's not running away from reform, but what do you think are the real political and economic liabilities tied to Australia's gambling industry? Ted O'See already mentioned sports. I think sports is always involved when we are talking about gambling reform. But Ted, what do you think about this?
Ted Menmuir (17:19.039)
I think this is the real point of attack on Nabil Nizi, right? And where he had to use kind of force to his hand. know, okay, fine. We can talk about advertising that would have kind of carried on, but I think at one point he had to face kind of that.
economic and social liability that Australian gambling definitely has. And here we return to the original mandate of Murphy and her call to end the normalisation of gambling in Australian society, which she believed was going to clear through TV, the reach of the operators themselves. Look, in 2023 Australia had a spend of 32 billion.
dollars that translates about circa 19 billion spend on legal gambling right and the average loss per adult customer was around about 1500 Australian dollars which is about 900 euros per year it's a much you know it's a very very kind of high value market
So I think that that was kind of the priority of the original inquiry is how do we kind of zone in and kind of lessen that over each of the markets? And again, that's where that's where the reformers view kind of that divergence. However, at the same time, you know, defending kind of the the Labour Party, I don't think that any of the reformers camps have had ever submitted any kind of kinds of proposals or even wanted to
especially in the sensitive matters of tackling gambling harms and also presenting a unified approach to tackle gambling addiction and gambling disorders on a public health front.
Fernando Noodt (19:13.472)
And now let's go briefly to something we kind of already discussed this, so that's why I want to do it briefly. So where does the Murphy report now stand? Are its recommendations effectively dead or will major reforms still carry through? And ultimately, how politically significant is this issue to them?
Ted Menmuir (19:36.523)
It's a good question. Look, I think you can always return back to the inquiry and I think that will be kind of the how from 2027. That will be the inquiry will always be referenced against the actual package of reforms.
I think part of where the mandate went wrong is that when Albanese came into office on a Man in Vesto pledge, I think he put too much on the menu to tackle on a case of just changing over and applying a system change to Australian gambling. Also, again, I think as Ted says, one of the problems is that I don't think that any government in modern Australia...
History has tried to tackle the of fragmentation of how gambling is governed on a state by state basis across the Commonwealth. And again, that will be kind of another point of fracture even when they implement this package of reforms. Australia is kind of stuck on the same cycle and I think from government to government, it will continue to kind of fumble these key questions. I don't know if Ted views this differently.
Ted Orme-Claye (20:50.697)
Yeah, I think it's hard to disagree with you Ted. think there's a huge amount of topics to address. The regulatory fragmentation, the concerns around gambling's societal impact in public health, public harm, how gambling advertising connects with that, but that, you know, into that discussion. But then also how gambling advertising and sponsorships play a role in the sports side of things, sports financing, the importance they have for broadcasters.
Ted Menmuir (21:00.821)
Yeah.
Ted Menmuir (21:12.884)
Yeah.
Ted Orme-Claye (21:20.817)
Yeah, it's a very hard issue to round off, especially when I'm Yeah, exactly, that's the thing.
Ted Menmuir (21:21.225)
It always sounds easier on paper. I think then you never, I never kind of trust the government that says, well, we're going to stick this timeline. And just completely, because it's not just a case of overhauling and advertising framework. It's a case of changing criminal laws, applying kind of a multi-stakeholder strategy on...
the gambling harms. This is stuff that in the UK it's taken us five or six years to even get to a settlement on why should it be different in Australia.
Fernando Noodt (21:57.505)
So it's safe to say that you don't trust this gambling advertising restrictions and new national problem gambling strategy to move forward in 2027, right Ted? That alongside other bigger ticket reforms.
Ted Menmuir (22:16.81)
I think it's a case of taking one them individually and I think also in the assessment it's that again, you know, the Labour government pitched big. has taken its choice to kind of diverge from the original mandate and that's what we judged on. Look, you know, if you manifest something you fail to deliver on it, it comes back down to you.
Fernando Noodt (22:47.476)
Well, there's a lot to process after this episode. Where does the Murphy report stand? How will these decisions by the Albanese administration impact on Australia's gambling reforms and all that? You can stay up to date with what happens next in Australia by subscribing to all SBC media newsletters and of course, follow iGamingDaily on your preferred
Podcasting platform and of course on all social media challenge a channel. Sorry We will do social media challenge eventually because that's like the the path that every every platform is about to bound to to make but Anyways, I've talked enough today. Thank you very much for another Ted and Ted talking time here on iGamingDaily Thank you very much, and Nea McDonald for producing this episode
Ted Orme-Claye (23:21.081)
You
Fernando Noodt (23:39.464)
I'm Fernando Nutt and to our listeners out there, we'll see you in the next one.