These themes were revealed in interviews conducted for a 2018 research study on young men and sports betting. Consider these typical responses:

  ‘Well, I love my sports bets … a few times a week I’ll have a bit of a multi.’ (Age 31)

  ‘I’ll bet on – maybe I’ll do a – one footy multi weekend, one soccer multi and then if there’s any good races – and I’ve gotten a tip from, like, a trainer or something ’cause I know a few people in the industry, then I might have a go at that as well.’ (Age 21)

  ‘You could be sitting at work at 11 am and you get a text or message saying there’s a meeting at Flemington at ten past one and this is who you need to bet on.’ (Age 29)73

  The same study found that the average age of sports betting initiation was 18 years; however, nearly one-quarter of gamblers reported being under 18 when they first placed a bet on sports.74

  An entire gambling eco-system has been designed by wealthy vested interests to attract and retain young male gamblers, including saturation advertising, promotions and inducements, innovative products and live broadcasting of all types of sports in pubs, where alcohol loosens inhibitions.

  ‘So definitely if I’m at the pub, I’ll definitely bet more just ’cause I’ll be watching – there’ll be races on, there’d be footy on. Like all the sports on different TVs. So you punt, yeah.’ (Age 21)

  ‘[Discussing betting at the pub] because you’ve got the TAB machines there. There’s the whole betting room and everyone’s, just chuck 10 bucks in and get a syndicate going. You get a lot more reckless [when you’ve been drinking].’ (Age 22)75

  Gambling companies are well aware that most young men lack a sophisticated approach to betting – that is, they put little thought into what is a prudent or good-value bet. As a professional gambler explains, most young men have ‘absolutely no clue about how odds are set’, and ‘the way Australian culture works benefits bookmakers so much because it’s not seen as fun spending a lot of time thinking about what you’re betting on’. Advertising reinforces this message with its common depictions of gambling as a social experience.76

  How much damage is being done to young men? Not surprisingly, there are different views. Those concerned about the normalisation of gambling through sport and the predatory practices of gambling companies are worried about the impact on a cohort of young men and the likely future trends without greater government regulation.

  The alternative view is that, with the rise of sports betting, gambling companies have simply created a new form of entertainment. With the introduction of deposit limits, so the argument goes, it’s difficult to lose large amounts of money betting on AFL and NRL games, and young men ‘get a fair bit of entertainment for the layout’.77 While this argument may carry some merit, there is little research on how much young men do actually spend, how many self-exclude, and how many are actually lured into more dangerous levels of gambling. As mentioned, the overall losses on sport are astronomical. Most young men don’t carefully track their losses. The culture around gambling, a professional explained, is a form of cognitive dissonance. Typically young men are reluctant to confront their losses and, if questioned, simply reply: ‘Ah, I broke about even.’78

  While young men have been the focus of the online gambling industry’s attention, young women have not been forgotten. Data released in 2023 by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that almost 30 per cent of Australian women gambled weekly. Of that population, women aged 18 to 34 were found to be at the highest risk of gambling harm. Simone McCarthy, one of the researchers behind the study, said that these younger women were gambling more frequently, compared to their older counterparts: ‘Young women today are growing up knowing how to use their phones, the [gambling] ads tell them exactly how to bet and it makes it look easy.’79

  Betting companies have developed other tricks to lure young women into gambling. Experts have found that young women are more comfortable betting on reality TV and the like than on sport.80 So companies have developed ‘novelty’ bets on music awards and reality TV shows. As gambling researcher Rohann Irving recently commented, ‘women are being targeted as a potential betting market more than ever before’.81

  Advertising and marketing

  If a tsunami of gambling ads blanketing mainstream media each year does not constitute predatory corporate behaviour, then what does?

  The regulations around gambling advertising are fragmented and contain many loopholes and oversights. New federal regulations were enacted in 2017 which stipulated that children cannot be depicted in gambling ads; ads cannot exaggerate people’s success from gambling; and they cannot link gambling and alcohol. But the regulations said nothing about an acceptable level of gambling advertising, and they also allow gambling ads during live sporting events after 8.30 pm.82

  A useful comparison can be made between alcohol and gambling advertising during sporting programs. The former is also permitted under law and is subject to an industry code of conduct that stresses the need for socially responsible advertising. But the Australian Alcohol and Drug Foundation has found that alcohol companies find loopholes to bypass the rules – and when complaints about ads are made, they’re often dismissed.83

  Tobacco advertising was, of course, eventually banned on obvious health grounds, and experts have called for a similar approach to advertising for both gambling and alcohol. Just how society should regulate legal but harmful products continues to be a vexed question. But the power wielded by the gambling and alcohol industries has led to the current loopholes, which include open access at times when children are watching sports programs.

  The sheer pervasiveness of these ads has, for years, angered the community. And the focus is sports broadcasting – family time. There are four times as many ads during sports programs than non-sports programs.84 And the big media companies are the beneficiaries. It is estimated that Channel Seven receives approximately $47 million per year from gambling advertising under its current broadcasting deal with the AFL. The same is likely true for Channel Nine and its relationship with the NRL.85

  All the evidence suggests that saturated gambling advertising works. It’s been the cornerstone of the normalisation and gamblification of sports betting discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Experts have confirmed that Australian gambling operators frame sports betting positively, via themes such as thrill, peer bonding, power/control and sports fan rituals, which are known to appeal to the target audience of young men.86 A 2023 study undertaken by the Institute of Family Studies confirms the impact of gambling advertising. This showed that 34 per cent of those surveyed increased their betting after being exposed to gambling ads.87 The institute also found that 78 per cent of Australians were seeing gambling ads on a weekly basis, with 41 per cent exposed four times or more a week.

  The use of social media by gambling companies has increased over time, representing, by 2024, one-quarter of all gambling ads. But this figure likely underestimates the level of social media advertising. Forms of non-conventional advertising such as those peddled by ‘influencers’ are not collated via the traditional methods used to monitor advertising.

  But the problem isn’t just the grotesque level of advertising; it’s also the psychological manipulation that drives the content.

  Why are gambling ads so effective in recruiting new customers? Gambling researchers draw a parallel between the techniques of tobacco advertising used in the 1970s and today’s alcohol and gambling ads. The similarity lies in how the three harmful products target young people with blokey humour and the use of carefully selected celebrities. All three have been depicted as part of the Aussie culture, with symbols of mateship used to reinforce this. While a content analysis of gambling ads highlights these essential similarities, they simultaneously establish that a more insidious force is at work: the use of the ‘dark arts’ of marketing.

  Marketing and the social science concept of propaganda are distinct forms of communication but the boundaries between them are blurred. In essence, marketing persuades consumers to buy products, while propaganda shapes opinions towards a cause or ideology.88 Some advertising employs techniques of propaganda, and none more so than gambling ads.

  The blokey humour so characteristic of the gambling ads shown on TV is designed to promote the cause of gambling: to capture hearts and minds and so normalise betting on sport. And, of course, propaganda often conveys false or misleading messages. In gambling ads, everybody always wins; there are no losers or damage done. Everyone has fun.

  As one gambling advertising consultancy service advised potential clients: ‘Your ads should be visually striking to capture your audience’s attention. Utilize high-quality images and engaging visuals that convey the excitement and allure of your gambling business … Use persuasive language to entice your audience to take action.’89 On television, on radio, in stadiums and across all forms of social media, online betting companies encourage us to ‘bet with mates’, ‘share the thrill’ and ‘make it look easy’. ‘Go on, have a dabble,’ urges one of the newest betting companies. ‘Dabble – the most sociable sports betting app, made just for you.’

  As mentioned above, gambling companies frequently promote inducements that make false or misleading claims. Propaganda also invokes stereotypes applied to specific people or groups. In gambling ads, all young men love gambling, which is promoted as essential to their masculine identity. And gambling ads promote the false idea of young men transformed overnight by successful gambling outcomes. By employing the techniques of propaganda, gambling ads carry greater emotional appeal and generate greater transformative behaviour in those who are receptive to their messages.

  Thus, Sportsbet ran an ad that showed a man dressed in shabby clothes and slumped on his couch as he scrolls through his phone. When he won his multi bet, a voiceover tells him, ‘You’ve finally made it!’ and the sad-looking couch potato is suddenly teleported, dressed in a tuxedo, to an awards ceremony, where he is handed the ‘most outstanding same game multi’ award and is cheered by the crowd. A complaint about the ad was sent to Ads Standards, the advertising industry’s self-regulating watchdog, which ruled that Sportsbet had breached industry standards by conveying the impression that successful gambling would lead young men to sexual success and greater attractiveness.90 In other words, the ad was simply propaganda.

  A new frontier for gambling ads has emerged with livestream websites such as Kick. Livestreaming has become a powerful medium for content creation and audience connection, but Melbourne-based Kick has a reputation of being the ‘wild west’ of the genre, where ‘any kind of content goes’. Shock value appears to be the core of its highly successful business model. Livestreaming gambling venues along with gambling advertising made up 20 per cent of Kick’s most recent content. It has been described as ‘the latest home for the fringes of young male viewers who spend significant time online’.91 Livestreaming websites like this encourage a further convergence of entertainment and gambling.

  There’s an international dimension to Australia’s toleration of gambling ads. The NRL is broadcast into Papua New Guinea, a rugby league bastion. The telecasts carry gambling ads, raising fears that Papua New Guineans, especially young people, will be encouraged to bet on the NRL. In December 2024 the Papua New Guinean and Australian governments entered an agreement for a PNG team to enter the NRL competition as part of a broader $600-million deal to prevent China from gaining a foothold in the country. Setting aside the politics of the deal, critics allege that a PNG NRL team will exacerbate a culture of gambling among its already impoverished population.92 Dr Uma Ambi, director of the PNG Directorate of Social Change and Mental Health Services, said problem gambling was a ‘time bomb’ for the nation.93

  Inducements

  In 2015, online bookmaker William Hill was accused of exploiting vulnerable gamblers by offering $1000 credit to potential customers. The company had been calling its customers telling them of the offer. And William Hill wasn’t alone, as many online betting companies have done exactly the same thing. Under existing law, it was not illegal.94 But such inducements to bet are hardly ethical. They provide a further example of late-stage capitalism and gambling: customers exist to fuel profits and make executives super-rich. Naturally enough, the gambling industry doesn’t like the term ‘inducements’, preferring to call the offers ‘promotions’.95

  Inducements take many forms, including refunds or stake-back offers, sign-up offers, the provision of bonus or better odds, multi-bet offers, or winnings paid on losing bets. ‘Online gambling inducements are wreaking enormous gambling harm across our country, they are fuelling more intensive and riskier betting that is leading to massive gambling losses,’ explained Martin Thomas from the Alliance for Gambling Reform.96 As Thomas intimates, inducements function as a well-calibrated machine for ripping off the vulnerable.

  Ben Carter was a particularly vulnerable customer of Sportsbet. The company allowed Carter to bet tens of millions with them, even though it was aware of his ‘red flag behaviours’ and ‘insufficient means’. But to keep sweet with him, Sportsbet flew Carter to Darwin for the 2022 Darwin Cup, where he was videoed arm-in-arm at a nightclub with Sportsbet CEO Barni Evans. He’d been given the VIP treatment to encourage his continued betting.

  A year later, Carter was arrested for an alleged $26-million fraud, with police alleging he was defrauding his clients through his tax advisory firm. His lawyer later told court that Carter was a pathological gambling addict who’d been inundated with Sportsbet’s generous inducements.97 At the time of writing, his case remains before the courts.

  The heavy promotion of multi-bet offers has worried gambling researchers. According to gambling research consultant Matt Stevens, the reason for the promotion of this product is not surprising: ‘the research is starting to show that [multis] are the worst bets, the ones that people lose on the most, and the odds offered are not commensurate with the betting risk [gamblers] are taking’.98 The rise of group gambling apps has been another recruiting tool. These allow friends to chip in and bet together, reinforcing the mateship dimension emphasised by gambling companies for so long.

  Australian governments have typically avoided systematic examination of the role inducements play in encouraging gambling. Each state has different regulations. But there’s no avoiding the reality that inducements are common and highly damaging. Gamblers often see inducements as risk-free bets, when in fact they are designed to entice new customers, to motivate self-excluded customers to return, or to stimulate more gambling from existing customers.

  A troubling case involving inducements came to the public’s attention in 2024. When ‘Callum’ was interviewed by the ABC, he hadn’t placed a bet with Sportsbet for more than a year. But the company was still trying to lure him back into action with an almost daily stream of text messages. His mobile phone buzzed continually with unsolicited calls from the company. Callum told journalist Matt Eaton that he was unaware of the Albanese government’s self-exclusion register, BetStop, which by then had been in operation for nearly a year.99

  In fact, BetStop proved a policy flop for hardened gamblers. When the government launched the initiative in August 2023, it promised to deliver an effective system that would protect gamblers who wanted to quit. ‘With a single touch an individual will be able to self-exclude themselves from all forms of online wagering,’ the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said when launching the register.

  But financial counsellors have found that many people presenting with severe gambling habits do not know about the program because it is poorly promoted. While 18 000 signed on in the first six months, 1400 of those revoked their self-exclusion and received no follow-up support.100 In addition, loopholes in the program undermine its effectiveness. This proved to be the case for addicted gambler ‘Ravi’, who found it easy to keep punting using multiple accounts with different betting companies. Ravi went on to lose a further $70 000.101

  Financial counsellor Pam Mutton pointed out that young men are being caught up in a web of inducements. The approach from betting companies, she said, is ‘very chatty, it’s very matey, it’s very engaging. It’s “anything I can do to give you a hand, mate? Just give us a ring and we’ll see what we can sort out.”’102

  Young men are sent emails in which they are ‘coached, encouraged and groomed to keep gambling’. Sports betting companies will say, ‘We’re going to put $20 000 in your account, in case you want it, as a convenience.’ In this way they offer easy credit, and because they don’t charge interest or fees, the transactions don’t get captured by responsible financial agencies. But when the person uses and loses the money, ‘the debt collection is brutal’.103 One gambler struggling with his habit said that if he went a few days without any activity, his account manager would message him that he’d popped some free bets into his account.104

  So-called ‘VIP programs’ trap many unwary gamblers. In truth, these are nothing short of creepy. Account managers have been found to approach clients as friends. They engineer ways to hang out together on weekends at the races or at sporting events. The account managers procure free tickets and make the person feel special. The plan for each person is documented in file notes.105 But account managers know the backgrounds of their ‘friends’ – that their high-spending client is perhaps a fragile ride-share driver whose marriage has just broken down.

  There are differences in the degree to which inducements are used between the big and small online gambling companies. The former are smarter in how they promote their products, and usually target wealthier customers. The big companies try to prise as much out of affluent gamblers as they can, and are more conscious of not damaging their brand by aggressively pursuing vulnerable punters. But the approach is still exploitative, as one professional gambler explains. The algorisms are so sophisticated ‘that they know as soon as someone starts increasing their stakes that it will be flagged. Once they’ve crossed off their legal obligations they will think, How great is this! We’ll try to get this person to bet as much as possible.’ This compares to the ‘lowlifetype companies that as soon as it’s flagged that they are betting more, they’ll throw the kitchen sink at them’.106