Growing row in Australia over federal government plans to ban gambling adverts

Australian media reports claim that the federal government is considering a ban on gambling adverts during live sports broadcasts as it attempts to win the support of anti-gambling Senator Nick Xenophon in its attempts to get a stalled media reform bill through the federal Senate.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield’s reform bill has been over a year in drafting and is due for debate in the Senate soon.

Such a ban could cost Aussie media outlets around A$120 million annually in lost revenues (and over time potentially a lot more in this competitive and big-spending sector) and it has therefore generated opposition from media companies, who claim that the only winners from fewer television ads would be overseas-owned Facebook and Google.

Supporters of the advert ban proposal cite pervasive advertising and its effect on children, saying the barrage of advertising tends to “normalise” gambling in a nation already noted for its penchant for a flutter.

Major gambling companies like Tabcorp, under pressure from foreign online operators who have entered the Australian gambling market and promote their products aggressively, have said they are supportive of reduced advertising.

The currently stalled media reform bill has some interesting provisions that could actually benefit local media firms; for example it may force Facebook and Google to pay traditional media companies for using their content, and could include less stringent media regulatory clauses and reduced licence fees for free-to-air operators, who presently cough up an estimated A$112 annually in licensing.

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