Transparency seemed to have been thrown out the window, but Rowland doubled down on her attempts to keep her meetings out of the public eye, redacting information from the documents that were released.50 To independent senator David Pocock, Albanese gave every appearance of ‘pandering to the gambling lobby’.51

  Gambling researchers were also excluded. One was Professor Samatha Thomas, a professor in public health at Deakin University who has been researching the harms associated with gambling advertising over many years. She explained in August 2024 that the health experts and community groups who had helped inform the Murphy Inquiry had largely been locked out of the negotiations with the government.52

  Albanese’s bungled responses

  The politics of gambling advertising were crystal-clear: the public expected reform. But in the inner sanctum of the Albanese government, according to Tim Costello, the arguments of ‘very, very powerful vested interests’ were being ‘weighed up against the public interest’.53

  This became apparent in Albanese’s mangled response to a question in parliament from independent MP Zali Steggall about the need to protect children from gambling harm. Albanese pulled out statistics so dubious that watchers were scratching their heads. Trying to deflect the problem away from online gambling, the prime minister said the main issue lay with poker machines – and then he claimed that 70 per cent of gambling harm lay with the machines and 15 per cent with lotteries and lotto. ‘I’m yet to see anyone stand up in this place and advocate banning completely all advertising of lottery and lotto tickets,’ he said.

  The problem, however, was that Albanese had apparently plucked the figures out of thin air. Samantha Thomas found the prime minister’s use of the figures disappointing. ‘A number of us looked for those figures immediately and weren’t able to identify them from any publicly identifiable source,’ she said. She suspected they originated from the vested interests fighting the ban.54

  However, Senator Pocock did find the source for them: ‘The only other place the figures cited by the prime minister have been referenced,’ he observed, ‘are in comments by Peter V’Landys, a person who runs two organisations that profit heavily from gambling and who is fighting against a ban on gambling ads.’55

  V’Landys had forged a close friendship with Albanese, as rugby league journalist Michael Chammas reported in The Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Albanese, an avid South Sydney Rabbitohs supporter and a lover of rugby league, has formed a close alliance with V’Landys and the NRL.’56 One Labor insider described their relationship as a bond, and said it wouldn’t shock anyone inside the party ‘that V’Landys had told the PM “don’t do it”, with regard to banning gambling ads’.57 As a sign of their closeness, Albanese invited V’Landys to join him at a White House state dinner in 2023.58

  In his response to the Murphy Inquiry, Albanese had allowed the perception to develop not only that he was disinterested in the work of experts in the field of gambling research, but worse: that he was part of a gambling industry disinformation campaign against an advertising ban.

  V’Landys wasn’t the only perpetrator of this disinformation. Kai Cantwell, the chief executive of Responsible Wagering Australia (RWA) – the lobby group that represents six of Australia’s largest betting firms – told the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast that any blanket advertising ban in the online space would risk ‘driving Australian consumers to illegal offshore providers’. Cantwell then claimed that, in Norway, ‘the illegal offshore market is now 66 per cent of the entire market’. When the ABC asked RWA for a source for these figures, none was provided.59

  In another answer to a parliamentary question, Albanese insisted that a blanket prohibition was not the ‘bold’ move others claimed it was. ‘The easy option is just to [ban ads] and not worry about the consequences for sporting codes, junior sport, the media.’ 60 Whether intentional or not, this is answer too echoed gambling industry talking points.

  The same could be said when Albanese characterised advocates for gambling reform, including Tim Costello, as ‘wanting gambling stopped’ and said that, in his view, this constituted ‘an intrusion into people’s personal liberties’. In response, Costello reminded the prime minister of his position: he was calling for reform and a ban on gambling ads, not for a ban on gambling itself. He noted that the gambling industry had long presented him as a prohibitionist, and that now Albanese was ‘mindlessly repeating the industry’s statements’. ‘I’m actually saddened for Albo,’ Costello said publicly. ‘He should be better than that.’61

  When pressed, Albanese fell back on his government’s self-exclusion program, BetStop, as a demonstration of its commitment to minimising harm from online betting. But as we saw in Chapter 8, the program had more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese.

  Chaney saw these responses as delaying tactics: a tacit admission that no clear reform agenda was being advanced by the government. But she had an additional take on why the Albanese government was playing dead on the issue: the memory of Peta Murphy. After she died, Chaney explains, ‘the government probably realised that if they came up with some watered-down version of reform it would be an insult to her advocacy on this issue’. After all, Albanese had been a dear friend.

  Albanese’s deflection tactic came under increasing pressure – in one case from an unusual and confronting source. Gavin Fineff, a former financial planner, wrote to Albanese from prison, where he was serving nine years for embezzling over $3 million of his clients’ money to feed his gambling addiction.

  Fineff’s case highlighted the blurred lines of accountability between a gambler with an addiction and the expectation that gambling companies will act responsibly. Under voluntary industry codes, many don’t act with a duty of care. And the giant British-based betting firm Ladbrokes didn’t in their interactions with Fineff, who was targeted by their business development manager because he was known to be a heavy gambler. The manager threw a suite of inducements to Fineff to encourage him to open an account. Eventually, the Northern Territory Racing Commission slapped a fine on Ladbrokes for breaching their licence conditions, with all the force of the proverbial wet lettuce – a mere $78 540.62

  From his prison cell, Fineff implored the Albanese government to tackle gambling addiction properly and to better regulate the industry, which he claimed was predatory. ‘The gambling companies know they are cultivating and exploiting addictions like the one I had. It’s part of their unspoken business model,’ Fineff wrote from his cell.63 He was disgusted that the gambling companies were allowed to keep the money he had stolen. Andrew Wilkie helped distribute Fineff’s letter to all members of the federal parliament.

  By mid-2024, a campaign to pressure the government to implement all the Murphy Inquiry’s recommendations was in full swing, coordinated by the Alliance for Gambling Reform, headed by CEO Tim Costello. As part of its campaign, Costello organised an open letter to the prime minister signed by 70 prominent Australians, including former PMs John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull. The letter stated: ‘Gambling advertising in Australia is out of control with one million gambling ads being aired on free-to-air television and radio in just one year.’

  But experts weren’t running government policy. In fact, the reverse was the case. The impact of the rolling series of secret meetings and Albanese’s personal links to powerful players fuelled the gambling industry’s growing confidence that it could crush the blanket ban on advertising.

  A snippet of information suggested as much. Back in December 2023, Age journalist David Crowe reported a leak from inside a recently held gambling industry conference which purported to show that the industry believed the Albanese government would cave in on a total ban. ‘Feedback from government is that we probably won’t have too much to worry about there,’ one executive was reported to have told the meeting.64

  The issue of an ad ban continued to tug at the moral conscience of the nation – including inside the Labor caucus. Tim Costello had attended Peta Murphy’s 50th birthday party, held a few months before she died. In attendance were a number of cabinet ministers; there was ‘deep feeling and respect for Peta’. By this stage she was so sick she couldn’t speak, but she heard encouraging messages from her colleagues. The attending ministers told her that they appreciated and understood the work she had done to highlight how the normalisation of gambling was leading so many young people to take it up.65 All agreed that more work needed to be done. Murphy died six weeks later.

  Something had to give. In September 2024, and in the face of tensions within his own party and growing public criticism, Albanese floated a total ban on online gambling advertising but only a partial ban on free-to-air television. The proposal involved a ban on gambling ads during children’s programs; for an hour on either side of a major sporting event; and a cap of two ads per hour thereafter.

  The measure was largely seen for what it was: a tame compromise. Chaney felt it had been devised in line with what the online gambling industry was prepared to wear. Other independent MPs were furious at the government’s proposed partial ban. Senator Pocock called it ‘a betrayal of Peta Murphy’s legacy’, while Zoe Daniels slammed the partial ban as a ‘half-hearted, half-arsed’ proposal.

  These critics were on solid ground. The committee had heard that partial bans were completely unworkable. As the organisation Children and Media Australia explained:

  We seem to assume that children just toddle off nicely to bed as soon as the clock strikes a certain hour, even if they’re in the middle of an exciting sports game. If regulations are to be serious about protecting children, they should be more realistic about family life.66

  The gambling industry spends most of its advertising dollars during evening television slots, which is when the audience of children aged between ten and 17 is the largest.67 This is especially the case with sports broadcasts: research shows that large numbers of children view sport on television well after 8.30 pm: many AFL, NRL and other games finish after 10 pm and then move straight into post-game shows.

  A fascinating development occurred in November 2024. As the government continued to deny the need for a complete ban on gambling ads, it committed to ban access to social media for children under 16 years of age. In justifying the measure as necessary to protect young people from ‘harms’ while at the same time allowing them to be exposed to gambling advertisements, the government’s hypocrisy was glaring.

  By late November 2024, as the parliamentary year was coming to a close, the government announced that the gambling reform package had been ditched. It had taken more time than the government had expected, Albanese explained. According to Tim Costello, many Labor caucus members were shattered that Albanese had pulled the government’s response to the Murphy Inquiry, and were incredulous that he did so almost on the first anniversary of Murphy’s death. ‘Tone deaf’ was the phrase Costello heard these MPs use to describe their prime minister.

  Just as Albanese ducked gambling reform, the Minister for Gaming in the Victorian Labor government, Melissa Horne, introduced to parliament long-awaited gambling reforms, the key feature of which proposed slashing the amount of money punters could put into a poker machine at any one time from $1000 to $100. A pre-commitment card allowing them to preset their losses was also part of the proposed reform package. It was the most significant gambling reform package in decades. Horne was personally committed to the reforms and determined to honour Peta Murphy’s legacy.

  In Tasmania, the situation was reversed. The gambling and hospitality industry succeeded in getting the Liberal government of Premier Jeremy Rockliff to ditch its commitment to introduce a mandatory gaming card.

  As 2025 began, gambling reform remained a dance between public opinion and vested interests. ‘It’s a fascinating insight into democracy,’ Costello explained. ‘Seventy-two to 80 per cent, in different surveys, say Australians want a total ban – full Murphy report. And you normally say, “Oh well, if it that’s strong, that’s how democracy works, it will happen.”’ But, he cautioned, ‘the vested interests at the moment are frustrating what is overwhelming public opinion’.68

  CONCLUSION

  No one expected the Albanese government to be returned to office at the May 2025 election with such an emphatic win. It was a landslide. The core of the prime minister’s political strategy was vindicated: shy away from political fights with vested interests. Steadiness won the day.

  Where does that leave structural reform on gambling during the Albanese government’s second term? Is the second Albanese government up for major reform? These were questions many seasoned commentators asked in the wake of the election result. At the time of writing, the early indications aren’t encouraging. Soon after the election, Albanese appeared to walk back any commitment to implement the recommendations of the Murphy Inquiry – which his government had established. He told the press that his government had moved on from Murphy’s recommendations, saying, ‘I expect us to continue to do work as we have.’ It was a virtually meaningless statement, but The Guardian noted the changed sentiment it conveyed, commenting that gambling reform was ‘a political task apparently too difficult for Labor before or after the election’.1

  If Albanese, with his thumping majority and likely two further terms in office, does walk back from the sort of bold gambling reform experts have called for, the reasons will not be a surprise. Foremost is the normalisation of gambling as a harmless form of entertainment. The gambling sector has grown into a mega-industry that wields enormous political power. In recent years, a power network has solidified around gambling comprising gambling companies, media outlets and sporting codes. All have a vested interest in perpetuating the record levels of gambling in Australia. Politicians now cower in the face of this brute force.

  Both the major parties have turned a blind eye to the growth of Big Gambling, swayed by the surge in jobs, advertising and sporting revenue, by the state taxes that have been generated over the past 30 years, and by the donations and lobbying. Those in power tend to see the gambling industry as ‘too big to fail’. The Labor Party, especially, has direct ties to the industry, which blunt its enthusiasm for reform.

  It is likely, therefore, that the gambling reform movement will have to continue to build on its already considerable public support, as the anti-tobacco lobby did decades earlier.

  However, politics can be unpredictable; there’s no set script that dictates how things play out. Over time, Prime Minister Albanese might come under pressure from his expanded back bench to act on gambling reform, as it is known that considerable dissatisfaction existed in Labor’s caucus over the government’s failure to act on the Murphy Inquiry’s recommendations in the lead-up to the 2025 election. Or a reform package might emerge out the government’s need to negotiate legislation with the Greens, who hold the balance of power in the Senate.

  The federal Liberal Party might take up the issue of gambling reform. This, at least, is what former prime minister John Howard told the media after the 2025 election. He declared that poker machines were a ‘grave social evil’, and that governments ‘were elected to do things’. He said that he would use his influence to push the Liberal Party to offer bipartisan support for taking on the powerful gambling lobby.2

  A scandal might erupt somewhere in the gambling industry to decisively shift the public’s sense of urgency over the issue. It’s an industry plagued with scandal, as Crown and Star have emphatically demonstrated. And, as this book has documented, Australia’s gambling industry has a dark side. How long can the drift to youth engagement in gambling be tolerated? What if education programs in elite sports prove ineffective? What if criminal elements regain control of part of the industry? What if suicides from gambling steadily increase?

  The current impasse on gambling reform, at both the state and national levels, is unsustainable. As I have shown throughout this book, the social damage, the infiltration of criminal elements and the corruption of the political process Big Gambling has caused is too high a price for the people of Australia to pay.

  Poker machines remain the most damaging gambling product. Given their spread through the community and the manner in which they have become linked to the business model of clubs and pubs, dealing with their sheer number will take time and courageous leadership. But their number must be reduced, the hours in which pokies premises can operate must be limited, and the intensity with which machines operate must be reduced.

  Online gambling is rapidly catching up with the damage caused by pokies. Here the reform agenda has been laid out in detail by the Murphy Inquiry, and is spearheaded by the call for a total ban on gambling advertisements. The community demands that these wretched ads go! More effective national regulation of online companies is essential, and a limit on the number that can be licensed. Companies’ ability to offer inducements to vulnerable gamblers must also be banned.

  The community must ask a fundamental question about its future culture: should sporting codes be allowed to develop sponsorships with gambling companies? My view is that such arrangements must be outlawed in the interests of the integrity and enjoyment of sport in its own right, so that it does not become simply an instrument for the recruitment of ever more gamblers.

  Casinos, because of their size and contribution to employment, present an altogether different challenge. We’ve seen how casino operators in Australia have developed criminal models with relative impunity. This is a flaw in the implementation of the Corporations Act 2001, which requires companies to act with care and due diligence. There’s probably also a case for revising the casino licensing legislation to spell out clearly what constitutes a breach of their responsibility to their customers and to society in general.

  Even more fundamentally, there needs to be a national reform of the federal–state funding arrangements so that states do not rely so heavily on gambling taxes. If this were done, one of the pillars propping up the power of the gambling industry would be removed.