The Australian government is planning to impose a ban on gambling ads during sports events broadcasts as part of a sweeping media reform package, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told New York reporters minutes before he took off from the US on Friday.
The reform will ban all gambling ads during live television and radio broadcasts of sports events. Advertising of gambling options will stop five minutes before an event begins and no ads will be featured until five minutes after play had concluded or 8:30 pm. Live racing coverage will remain exempt from the new rules, and ads will be featured in accordance with existing regulations.
Australian Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield commented on the regulatory overhaul by saying that they aimed to achieve a balance between recognizing the importance of gambling advertising as a revenue source to commercial media and the importance of protecting vulnerable people, mainly children.
According to a 2016 media buyer report, Australia-facing gambling operators spent A$125 million on advertisements in the year ended June 30, 2016, up 25% from a year earlier. Influential lawmakers have long called for a reform that would reduce the volume of ads featured during sports events broadcasts.
South Australia Sen. Nick Xenophon, known to be a long-time opponent of gambling proliferation, said of the pending reform that it was a good start but more had to be done.
National sports leagues and teams will too be able to voice their opinion on the decision. Some of these have been sponsored by gambling operators through multi-million dollar deals.
The impact the new regulations will have on commercial broadcasters is yet to be revealed.
The announcement about the gambling ads reform comes at a time when the Australian government is entering final stages of signing the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 into law. Introduced last fall, the piece of legislation was approved by lawmakers in March. It will amend the country’s existing online gambling regulations by offering more clarity on what is legal and what is not in terms of iGaming.
Once the bill comes into effect, the provision of online poker and casino games will become illegal in the country. The reform has been criticized heavily by the industry and by players, but it seems that the government is determined to retain its current stance on the matter.
Several gambling operators left the market shortly after news about the potential introduction of a new regulatory regime had broken out, with 888poker and Vera&John being among those. PokerStars has revealed that it would leave Australia once the new law is implemented.
