Why Can’t the Government Stop Gambling Harm? [S3-08]

Show Notes

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Music: “Insurrection”
Written by Pierre Chrétien
Performed by the Soul Jazz Orchestra
Courtesy of Do Right Music Inc.

Transcript

link to podcast

14 October 2026

Glenn
Welcome to another episode of Why Can’t They Just, a podcast about politics, policy and getting stuff done. I’m Glenn Davidson and I’m a member of the Labor Party.

Janaline
I’m Janaline Oh, I’m also a member of the Labor Party. I’m a former diplomat and a climate, environment and anti-racism activist.

Yassine
I’m Yassine Andrews, I’m a Year 11 student, and I’m also a part of the Labor Party.

Janaline
Before we start, I‘d like to acknowledge that we are all recording this on the unceded lands of First Nations people in Australia. Recognising that sovereignty was never ceded, we pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and we extend those respects to any First Nations listeners that we have today.

Glenn
Today we’re talking about the recent reforms governing gambling advertising in Australia.

Australia has a very distinctive gambling profile. We gamble more per person and lose more money per person than any other country. Around three quarters of Australian adults gamble routinely, including on poker machines - which is the largest share, sports betting, horse racing, lotteries, scratchies, casinos and online betting platforms.

In 2022-23 Australians wagered around $244 billion, with around about $31 billion of that in losses to the gamblers. That works out at roughly $1500 per adult per year.

Previously, having a bet required some effort. You either had to visit or call a TAB, go to the races, or go to a casino or club. Now technology has reduced the effort required to have a bet, with people able to place multiple bets within seconds from their phones. With electronic poker machines, there is very little effort required to feed in a $50 note and then just keep pushing a button in the hope of winning a jackpot. In reality, they are usually just chasing their losses.

It is highly addictive for some people, and they can and do lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. In some cases, it can and has destroyed lives.

Yet gambling advertising is ubiquitous and relentless. That is why gambling advertising has become such a hot political issue, particularly the link between sport and the heavy promotion of sports betting.

Janaline, what is it about Australian history and culture that has given Australians the dubious honour of being the world’s biggest gambling losers? Surely there’s no harm in having an occasional flutter or a punt on the Melbourne Cup, perhaps in the company of a few mates? And the gambling ads do tend to highlight the shared social experience and mateship of gambling.

Janaline
There is nothing wrong with having the occasional punt or betting on the Melbourne Cup, and there is nothing wrong with having a punt with your mates.

The problem is, people who are spending their life savings on poker machines are not doing it with their mates. I mean poker machines, by their nature, are a very solitary activity. Online gambling is also not hanging out with your mates. It’s you and your phone and it is particularly insidious because, as you say, in the olden days you had to actually duck out to the TAB; you had to take an action that was not just surreptitiously clicking on your phone. So I think that is problematic.

I think in terms of Australian culture, I mean Two-up on Anzac Day has been accepted cultural practice for upwards of a century.

Gambling is a thing that people do. All societies have gambling and it is accepted to a greater and lesser extent with different activities, right? People punt on snail races and I think as long as it’s a community activity, it is not so harmful. What has made it unusually harmful in Australia is the unrestricted solo gambling that somehow our society has ended up permitting, and this is particularly problematic with some of our most vulnerable communities: First Nations communities are particularly badly affected.; multicultural communities, many of whom don’t have the English skills to go and seek the kind of help that is available for people who are suffering from gambling harm, are also badly affected.

And I’ve got to say, gambling is a really Chinese thing. My father, when I was very young; he used to always buy lottery tickets. When I got a little bit older, one of his friends got him into horse racing. And he was a physicist, so he was very excited about the idea of assessing probabilities and looking at histories and he started betting on horses and then he got into pokie machines. Now what was good about my father was that he understood that he needed to limit himself, so he would give himself a $200 limit and once he got to that limit, no matter he was on a winning streak, he would leave. But not everybody is capable of doing that, and not everybody can afford the $200.

I think attitudes to gambling in Australia have probably been more permissive than in many other societies. And I think one of the things about gambling in Australia is that it has tended to be a very working class pursuit, whereas in some other cultures it is more of a kind of elite class pursuit. So the opium dens in China, where people used to bet terrific amounts of money, tended to be frequented by the wealthy. In the UK, the aristocrats used to gamble on cards and horses. But I think in Australia - maybe this is a good thing - it’s been very democratised. Which, again, to the extent that it’s a community activity associated with a community event like a snail race, then probably it is harmless. But when it becomes a solo activity between you and a pokie machine with a button that can suck up a $50 note in seconds, or between you and a sports betting app on your phone, then I think it actually becomes quite problematic.

Glenn
All right. There’s some interesting comments there, Janaline, in terms of the different types of gambling that was conducted and was sort of regularised years ago versus what’s happening now. We might come back to that.

But first, let’s get a younger perspective on all of this and hear from Yassine.

Yassine
So I want to talk about the psychology of gambling, which is: there’s a gambling disorder, which is pretty much an addiction to gambling, which is similar to alcohol and substance abuse disorder, where there are barriers to change, which is often caused by stigmas from a bad perception of addiction.

Where they don’t treat it as a health issue, but an individual issue by putting the blame on the individual, which makes them feel shameful and not look for help. In the case of gambling disorder, they don’t want to be gambling but can’t help it because you know, it’s a disorder.

With mental illnesses, people often feel sympathy, but with addicts, they’re often the ones that are getting blamed.

I read an article in the New York Times where there was this guy who was diagnosed with a gambling disorder, and he explained that early exposure to gambling through childhood gaming and online gambling were key factors in developing gambling disorder later in life.

So Luke’s not here because he got COVID, unfortunately, but one of the things that he was going to say is that there is simulated gambling in kids’ games, like video games. And there are two types: one where you open a mystery box and you have some cool thing that you can add to your character; and another where it’s simulated actual gambling within the game. And the point is kids shouldn’t be exposed to that. And he’s not saying, like, kick the kids out of these kinds of games, but kick the loot boxes out of the kids’ games.

Also, since it’s not seen as a health issue: it is a health issue. Medical professionals don’t really know how to deal with it and need better staff training.

Glenn
All right. There’s a whole range of interesting factors that have come out of that from what you’ve both said and the way that gambling has sort of evolved over time. Your comment, Janaline, about the lottery tickets was interesting.

I grew up in Sydney and when the Opera House was being built, and that was largely funded by an Opera House lottery. I think the tickets back then were about $6, which was quite a bit of money at the time. And the price was 200,000, which was a huge amount of money in the 60s and 70s.

But the point was you were buying a ticket in a lottery. There was a time lag before it was drawn and before you knew whether it was won, and it was a contribution towards the cost of building a public facility. It was all happening in slower time, and it was pretty clear what was going on.

And then even the business about the punting on the horses, there’s a certain amount of mental effort had to go into that. That meant conscious decisions. A period of time would elapse, you’d get a result and so on.

The things that Yassine and, through her, Luke, have been talking about, these are instant gratification things that happen often on your own. And all that’s at stake is you possibly winning a prize - or more likely not. And it happens in real time and with no time lags.

So that nature of gambling has changed and that sort of segues, I think, into the whole issue around the advertising of that gambling which we’ll get to in the next segment.

Janaline
I’m just going to make a point about the Opera House lottery. I mean, that to me is not gambling. That’s like a raffle. Community organisations run raffles all the time. You buy a ticket for 5 bucks; you know that fundamentally what you’re doing is making a donation to that organisation. And if you’re lucky in the draw you might get a meat tray or a dinner for two at a fancy restaurant.

And even for lottery tickets, nobody goes out and spends $5000 on lottery tickets. They will spend their $10.00 or $20.00, but nobody takes out their life savings to spend on the lottery, because you can see what the odds are.

The problem with slot machines is that you put your money in and it’s insidious. You keep putting your money in and then they give you these little rewards. These machines are deliberately programmed so that, after you’ve given them a certain amount of money, they will give you a small amount back to keep you going, to keep that dopamine flow so that you keep pushing that button and end up losing insane amounts of money.

Glenn
All right, that’s a reasonably quick sprint across gambling as an activity.

Now in 2023, a parliamentary inquiry into online gambling and its impact on people experiencing gambling harm was led by former Labor MP, the late Peta Murphy, and delivered its report entitled You Win Some, You Lose More. That report pointed to evidence that greater exposure to gambling advertising can lead to more positive attitudes towards gambling, a greater intention to gamble, increased participation in gambling and increased risk of gambling related harm. And that’s over and above the addictive pull of gambling itself. There was a particular concern about the exposure of children to this advertising and the normalisation of a relationship between sport and gambling.

The Murphy report made 31 recommendations, but the one that attracted the most public attention was a comprehensive ban on all forms of online gambling advertising. Other recommendations were directed at better safeguards for people experiencing gambling harm, limiting the integration of gambling and sport, and stronger regulation of the gambling sector. Supporters argued that gambling advertising should be treated the same as tobacco advertising because both are linked to significant public harm and public health issues.

On the other hand, critics argued that gambling revenue supports sporting organisations, community clubs and sports broadcasting through lucrative sponsorship deals, and they pointed to largely unspecified impacts of the loss of that revenue.

Janaline, the Murphy report was produced by a bipartisan committee and its 31 recommendations had the unanimous support of all members from across the political divide. Quite unheard of.

So why didn’t the Albanese government just implement all of the recommendations in full? And why has it taken three years to do what they have done?

Janaline
I often ask myself those questions when I think about this subject. That report was very comprehensive. The recommendations were very, very sensible. I think they did take into account that industry needs to be consulted in carrying out these reforms and I think they did consider the concerns of industry and the concerns of the sporting codes and the major media organisations about the potential impact on their sectors of withdrawal of gambling advertising.

Yet again, I am so old, I can remember when we had Benson and Hedges Test matches and cigarette advertising was ubiquitous in sport, from the highest level of Test cricket to community sports.

And I remember that when a number of governments started talking about removing tobacco advertising because of the demonstrated harms of smoking, there was exactly the same argument: community sport will die; we will not have cricket in Australia anymore, ever. They banned tobacco advertising in sport. They banned having tobacco logos on sporting fields where they could be caught by cameras. They banned having tobacco logos on people’s uniforms. And guess what, we still have community cricket in Australia; we still have community football; people can still play sport; we still have test matches. So I am very sceptical of the arguments that if you take gambling advertising away from the sporting codes they will collapse.

I would say if you cancelled gambling advertising immediately and didn’t make an effort to help them transition, then probably that would be true. But that is not what the Murphy report suggested. They suggested a phase in. They suggested specific assistance to help in the transition period. They looked at ways in which the withdrawal of tobacco advertising was managed to ensure that those catastrophic outcomes did not come to pass. So we’ve done it before, we can do it again.

I think it is highly problematic that young people today, and particularly young men, are increasingly associating sport with betting because when I was a kid, sport was sport. And nowadays sport is not just watching a game. Sometimes it’s not even watching a game. Sport is actually about calculating the odds that someone’s going to kick a goal and, you know, having a punt on it.

And I think that is where the gambling becomes problematic and I think gambling is not the same as gambling advertising. The parliamentary committee report did not recommend banning gambling in sport. They recommended banning the advertising and the reason for that is because the advertising normalises the idea that gambling is a thing that just comes with sport and that you cannot have sport without gambling. Banning advertising is not the same as banning gambling.

Adults can still have a punt on the footy without having the absolute tsunami of advertising associated with it that exposes their children to the idea that you can’t actually watch the footy without having a punt.

Glenn
Yeah, that is interesting, I know we just had the AFL Grand Final. I must admit I’m a fairly passive watcher of these things. I’m not seeking out information. But I was sitting there and I was struck by one ad that came up that showed that you could gamble on every aspect of the game, in terms of which players might have, you know, had so many kicks or so many marks or when things were going to happen at a bit different time in the game and basically almost a play by play opportunity to gamble.

Now I wasn’t looking for what my gambling options were. It was just presented to me. And if there hadn’t been any children sitting there with me, they would have had that presented to them too. So what you say is, it’s being regularised. So it’s part of a game beyond just looking at the odds of who’s likely to win.

Yassine?

Yassine
So with advertising, I want to bring up the Sydney Sweeney ad for the small betting company. She’s an actor who is very famous and she appears naked and promoting a bunch of different sports. And it really shows the audience of gambling, which is impressionable men who make up most of the audience.

And it really degrades women in sport and makes them all completely sexualized rather than real people who have put in hard work, teamwork, their struggles and their talents into their whole careers. So it’s quite shallow.

But the point is, even the advertising for this is harmful and it shows how the community it builds is quite harmful as well.

Janaline
Again, I’m really showing my age here. Selling things by sexualizing women used to be a very, very accepted way of advertising things. I think one of the shocking things about that ad in the current day and age is that a lot of women, I think, thought we had moved on from that. I mean, when I was a child, it was actually quite an accepted thing to have girls in bikinis draped over the hoods of cars, in order to sell the cars. Because the implication is, if you have this car, you can get a girl like this. So obviously the audience was certain types of males.

So what struck me about the controversy about this ad was actually how far the society has moved on, that we think it was shocking because it wasn’t shocking in the 1970s to have near naked women selling stuff.

I also think it is kind of awesome that a bunch of sportswomen have responded to that by posting pictures of themselves doing awesome things in sport and saying this is what women in sport look like. And I think that really has in a way made quite an impact in a good way in favour of normalising female sport.

And the last thing I would say is that I feel like this little sports betting company, in which Sydney Sweeney has a significant equity stake, has actually been really smart in its marketing, because by creating this extremely controversial advertisement, they have really shaped the debate around sports betting and promoted their company in a way that I think would not ever have happened had they not courted this outrageous amount of controversy.

So that probably says something bad again about the whole outrage economy that we discussed in our social media episode.

Glenn
OK, now let’s get back to the whole issue of around gambling.

So Yassine, you’ve got another point to make?

Yassine
So something that I was going to say, but Luke also was going to say, so I’ll just merge them, is that it’s not just the ads that are promoting gambling. Like there’s so much gambling integrated to so much just social media, just anything.

So it’s like kind of harder to identify now. So like for example, last week Luke saw a video of an AI-generated capuchin with a Jamaican accent who at the end of each of his videos would put up an ad for a gambling website. And there’s a Sydney performance artist who he’s seen wandering around in real life who has literally turned their art into gambling ads and largely target high school kids.

So there’s so much just gambling content that is integrated with so much of just daily life that it’s kind of hard to avoid, because they’re not real ads that you can regulate.

Glenn
Now, when announcing these reforms to gambling advertising, Prime Minister Albanese said, and I’m quoting him here: ‘We’re getting the balance right here, letting adults have a punt if they want to, but also making sure Australian children don’t see betting ads everywhere they look’. He’s also repeatedly described the package as, and his words here again, the most significant reform on gambling that has ever been implemented.

So he’s essentially saying that gambling’s a legal activity for adults, but children should not be bombarded with betting promotions. He says the government’s restrictions are the most significant gambling reforms Australia’s ever seen and strike the right balance between personal choice and harm reduction. But the real test of these reforms won’t be what politicians or commentators say about them; it will be what happens over the next few years. Will fewer children be exposed to gambling marketing? Will people experience in gambling harm, find it easier to avoid betting promotions, and will sports fans notice a meaningful difference when they watch games? And perhaps most importantly, will gambling losses and gambling related harms actually decline?

Janaline, is the Prime Minister having a bet each way here? Will the reforms achieve the reduction in social harm the Murphy review was seeking? Or are these changes just a light touch so as not to harm the powerful and influential entities that benefit directly from gambling revenue?

Janaline
So can I say that the Prime Minister is right, these are the most significant reforms that have ever been implemented. But frankly, partly that’s because nobody’s ever implemented really significant reforms before. So we’re starting from a pretty low base here.

So yes, I think he’s telling the truth. They are the biggest reforms that anybody’s ever implemented.

But at the same time, I think he’s being utterly disingenuous when he conflates adults having a punt with the lame degree of light touch restriction that is put on the exposure of children to advertising.

Because as I said before, advertising is not the same as gambling. It is perfectly fine for adults to make their own choices about what they do with their money, and if it involves punting on stuff in a safe way that doesn’t destroy their families, then they should absolutely be allowed to do it: it is a legal activity. But the advertising is pernicious and pervasive and has been demonstrated to do harm: firstly to children, by sucking them into the idea that there is no such thing as sports without betting; secondly to people who have suffered gambling harm, who might be wanting to get away with it. And every time they try to watch a sporting match, all they get is more gambling ads and more reminders of the harm that they’ve done to their own lives. And thirdly, it just totally normalises the idea, again, that you can’t have sport without gambling.

So it’s not the same as saying it’s OK to have a punt. I find that characterisation to be quite disingenuous.

And I’ve got to say I am quite a fan of a lot of things that this government has done. I think they’ve done amazing things in a lot of policy areas and we have discussed some of those on this program. But in this case I think they have absolutely capitulated to the interests of those people who are enriching themselves from the immiseration of others.

And I would note that the biggest concentration of pokie machines in Australia is in the poorest neighbourhoods. I would also note that with online betting, a lot of the harm is being done to people in already marginalised communities. A lot of the harm is being done to people who don’t maybe have the English language skills to go and seek the help that they need, even though they might want to have help.

The whole conversation around personal responsibility, as Yassine said, is incredibly harmful because what it says is if you have a gambling addiction, then you’re not behaving responsibly. Well, guys, sorry, maybe it’s actually because it’s an addiction and they can’t help it and it’s a health issue.

I think there are a lot of things in that parliamentary report well beyond just the gambling advertising that I think the government should take very seriously.

One of the key recommendations was nationwide, or at least a national standard, for the regulation of online betting, because at the moment each state does it separately. And to nobody’s astonishment, because of all types of activity, online activity is the most geographically portable, nearly all online betting is registered in the Northern Territory, which is the slackest regulatory jurisdiction.

So having national standards or better still a national regulator, I think, would go a long way to making sure that standards are uniform and that best practice occurs across the country.

I think another really important thing to consider in terms of gambling harm is also looking at increasing the friction for people to bet vast amounts of money. So one of the things that the government has considered and various state governments have considered is, for example, on poker machines, which as you say are the biggest area of gambling harm, to restrict the amount of money you can put in. I think one of the proposals under the Gillard government was the idea of having $1.00 bets so that you couldn’t put a $50 note in, you had to put a $1.00 coin in.

Another thing about poker machines is, when I was a child, they were called one arm bandits because you had to actually pull a lever. Now it takes you probably 5 or 6 seconds to pull a lever. It takes you less than one second to push a button.

So just by having those little bits of friction between a better and the bet can go some way to actually reducing gambling harm. So I mean, as you say, there were 31 recommendations in that report. I read the report. I thought they were very, very sensible. And as I said, one of the key things that they said was that, while it is important that these industries do not determine policy, it is also important that policy makers engage with the industry to ensure that the policy that is made is possible to implement and does make sense.

So I think the report actually strikes the right balance between allowing adults who are able to and who wish to have a punt to have a punt, without extending those harms to people who are punting when they don’t wish to, or who are punting more than they can actually afford to. And in the process creating enormous societal harm, which is very well documented. And that’s even before you get to exposing children.

So, as you can probably guess, I’m not a huge fan of the government’s approach.

Glenn
Yassine, let’s hear from your perspective.

Yassine
So I know some people around my age who have been sucked into the betting industry from things on social media convincing them to, which as I said before, is not just ads, it’s just the normalisation of gambling jokes and people making viral posts about things.

And that is what got them into it in the first place. And from this, they spent a lot of time and money on it. Like over 41000 spent and like $100 earned on all types of sports, not just the ones they’re into. And they would also get other people - friends - into it as well. So it’s clear the audience is boys, but it is also teenagers who are earning barely any money as it is.

Something that Luke was going to say was that sports betting is obviously a big problem, particularly for young men, and he knows a lot of people who have been hooked on sports betting, similar to me, and it’s done through traditional avenues like Sports Bet, but you can also so do it through betting markets and these guys who he’s known since high school got hooked on opening loot boxes in games. Does that make sense?

Janaline
Yeah, I think that makes sense: I think that the point about the online games and the loot boxes are the gateway to normalising the idea of gambling; and I think it’s also that point that you made about: it’s not just the advertising which you can actually regulate.

And you know, there’s been a lot of talk about banning online gambling advertising through social media platforms, and I’m totally in favour of that. But that doesn’t resolve that problem that you say, of individuals posting, effectively, gambling advertising on their own feeds. I was really alarmed by the idea of that Sydney performance artist who is out in the street effectively advertising gambling through art.

So I think it is a bit of a pervasive problem and as with many things, the government can’t do everything. The government can’t solve all of the problems through legislation or regulation. But what the government can do and what it has done in the past with things like tobacco harm is fund really comprehensive education programs so that people understand the impact that gambling can have on their lives ,and to regulate the amount of advertising and the type of advertising and where that advertising can be seen and by whom. Because again, we come back to the normalisation of ‘gambling is just another way of playing sport’.

Glenn
Yeah. So those comments from both of you really just shows just how all pervasive and encompassing is the whole gambling culture. And as demonstrated through the gambling advertising industry. Gambling ads are not just imparting information, you know, saying if you want to place a bet, you can do it through this venue. They are more the lifestyle representations that, you know, show people how they need to have a good time or this is how you have a good time and it is by gambling or including gambling in it. And that’s part of the problem.

The other part is the fact that it just reaches you everywhere. If it’s coming through social media, it’s with you all the time. Back in the old days, you only saw it if you were watching the TV or if you went past a billboard or whatever, whereas now it’s on your phone all the time and in the social media feeds and part of the discourse between teenagers from what Yassine was saying, if there are jokes and stories and ads to be talked about and whatever. So it’s all there.

I must say, given the unusual nature of having the unanimous agreement to all of the Murphy report recommendations across the parliament when they don’t agree on anything, absolutely nothing. But they agreed on this, and still we couldn’t get the changes through that that report recommended, which as you say, Janaline, were very sensible and would have made a real difference.

That is very disappointing and probably to the shame of the Albanese government. Notwithstanding all the good things they’ve done, this isn’t one of them.

Now time has beaten us again. So it’s time for final statements and we’ll hear from you first, Yassine, on behalf of both yourself and Luke.

Yassine
So for me, I think that it’s important to make sure that people suffering from gambling disorder get the help that they need from medical professionals by putting funding into the education of this disorder and also making sure it’s regarded as a serious medical issue rather than an individual problem. And also ban any kind of promotional advertising online of gambling.

Also important to note how severe this problem is that it’s reached people my age, like 16 year olds, and also people Luke’s age, that have been sucked into this industry.

Glenn
And Janaline.

Janaline
Yeah, I think that is really bad. And another point that Luke made is that some of his friends got sucked in at age 13. So it’s not just people your age, it’s actually much younger kids of a lower stage of maturity, let’s say, than you and Luke are.

One of the other points that Luke made was that, in the week that these gambling advertising reforms were passed in Parliament, the media was completely obsessed with a podcast that the PM had done where he referred to a gift of melons presented to him by the Japanese Prime Minister that, basically, I’m going to say it, boiled down to a pretty crass boob joke. Aside from the merits of going on podcasts if you’re the Prime Minister and what is reasonable for a Prime Minister to say, the Japanese government clearly didn’t want that to be an issue, and made clear that they didn’t see it as an issue. And the media and the opposition spent all of their time in that parliamentary week talking about a bit of arguably fluff, when these really important reforms were passing the parliament.

So what does that say about us? I don’t think anything very good.

I think the other point that he was making was exactly coming back to that issue that you raised, Yassine, and that he raised in his earlier notes, was the thing about it’s really hard to regulate a thing that is just embedded in the culture. You can make rules around advertising, which is defined as things that are paid to sell a product or do a certain thing. It is much harder to make rules around what individual people on social media can do.

And that’s where I think you get back to: what are the levers that the government can pull, because after all, this is about policy. The levers the government can pull are funding education programs. They can ban types of advertising. They can regulate the industry in a way that it is not currently being regulated to ensure that where gambling harm is affecting people, the gambling companies pick it up and address it.

And one of the key things that the government has agreed to do is to ban what they call inducements, which is these special promotions where if you make one more bet, you can get this special access to a thing. Or if you deposit another $100 into your gambling account, then we’ll top it up with another 50. Those sorts of things I think absolutely should not be allowed because they are literally all about just pushing people into putting more and more of their money into gambling.

So I think that takes you away from the idea that it’s fine for adults to choose to have a punt. When you get into that level of what the gambling companies call promotion and what other people call inducements, then I think you’re actually getting into the territory of these gambling companies are trying to foster addiction.

And I think we need to be very clear about that. The only way these companies make money is if you lose money. Like literally that is the whole business model.

So I think there is room for the government to be a lot clearer about that and if people are choosing to spend their money in that way, then that is completely fine and up to them, in the way that they are entitled to go and spend a couple of hundred dollars on a fancy meal. If they have that couple of hundred dollars and they want that fancy meal, they are completely entitled to do that. And they are also entitled to spend a couple of hundred dollars on having a punt as long as they realise they are going to lose that money. And the pleasure that they get from having that punt has got to be seen as the entertainment activity and it’s got to be seen as ‘I am spending money to do this’, not ‘I’m putting money in here because I think I’m going to get this massive return’, because that return is not going to come.

So I think these are all themes that came out very strongly in that parliamentary committee report, and I don’t think enough has been said about the fact that that business model is based on you lose money.

So I think, as the Prime Minister said, this is the most substantial reform to gambling that has ever been implemented by any government. But that doesn’t make it the end of the story and it doesn’t make it enough. Frankly, doing any reform in this space would have been the most significant reform ever done, because nobody has done any reform before. So I think this has got to be seen as a work in progress. And I think that the advocates for addressing gambling harm and the people who supported the full implementation of the Murphy report are not going to rest. And I think that is a good thing that they’re not going to rest because this is a problem. And I do think we need to address this problem.

And so I hope that people will continue to advocate until this government or future governments actually bite the bullet and implement these very sensible reforms.

Glenn
That was another episode of Why Can’t They Just? The theme music that we use for this podcast is a piece called Insurrection by Pierre Chrétien, performed by the Soul Jazz Orchestra, courtesy of Do Right Music Inc.

Janaline
You can also hear us on Canberra community radio, 2XX FM 98.3, on Tuesdays between 6 and 7, or via 2XXfm.org.au. If you like our work, consider supporting us on Patreon, via our website whycanttheyjust.com.au.

Glenn
I’m Glenn Davidson.

Yassine
I’m Yassine Andrews.

Janaline
I’m Janaline Oh, and this is Why Can’t They Just?