Many of us will remember growing up seeing tobacco promotions saturating our sporting environments. While tobacco advertising was increasingly curbed, then banned, tobacco sponsorship remained. Despite overwhelming public support for complete marketing bans, thanks to lobbying from commercial interests and sporting codes, a ban on tobacco sponsorship in sport wasn’t fully implemented until 1995.
Despite all the claims that this would be catastrophic for sports, they survived and flourished without tobacco money. Since then, tobacco marketing bans have rightly been credited with playing a powerful role in limiting the uptake of smoking in young people.
Now, despite the lessons learned nearly three decades ago about the destructive health impacts of aligning a predatory, health-harming industry with sport, we find ourselves facing the same situation – this time with gambling.
The parallels between gambling and tobacco are striking. A harmful industry that should never have become intertwined with our major sporting codes; government policy has not kept up with technological advances; powerful vested interests including major sporting codes and broadcasters have lobbied against regulatory reform; and innovative promotions which further normalise gambling for young people. Politicians responsible for regulating the industry have even accepted political donations from sports betting companies or have gone on to work for gambling industry peak bodies.
However, unlike tobacco, gambling has not been seen by governments as a public health issue that threatens the wellbeing of young people. Rather, gambling is seen as an entertainment product where the onus for responsible engagement rests largely with gamblers. This has made it incredibly difficult to ensure governments develop policies focusing on the gambling industry whose products and tactics cause a great deal of harm to individuals and the community.
Despite clear evidence about the impacts on children and young people, strong public support and federal inquiry recommendations, successive governments have not been willing to act on gambling marketing and sponsorship as they did for tobacco. The recent Australian federal inquiry into online gambling unanimously recommended sweeping changes to gambling regulation to protect the health of the public over gambling industry interests. This included recommendations for comprehensive bans on gambling advertising to protect children. However, the Australian government has yet to make a decision about whether it will back the recommendations of the inquiry, or the vested interests of those who profit from gambling.
The lack of effective action on gambling marketing suggests that governments have decided to put the interests of business that benefit from gambling over the health and wellbeing of children and young people. Increasing evidence both in Australia and internationally shows that this government inaction is creating unnecessary and preventable health risks.
Over the last decade our research team at Deakin University has studied the gambling attitudes and opinions of children, young people and parents. Their messages about the impact of and need for government action on gambling are clear.
Children and young people tell us they find it hard to avoid gambling marketing and promotions in their everyday environments. As one young person told us: “It is always there in your face.” This constant exposure has multiple impacts to the extent that they are not only able to recall multiple gambling brand names, but can tell us the colours of those brands.
Exposure to marketing in everyday environments also creates an exaggerated perception that gambling is a normal and socially valued activity that everyone engages in. As one 16-year-old told us, “because it’s everywhere, it must be something normal”. Parents are naturally worried and angry about exposure to marketing for an “addictive, life destroying” product, which is “advertised to children every day of the week when they watch their favourite sport stars”.
Some marketing strategies, such as cash back offers and trusted celebrity endorsements, have created a perception for young people that gambling has limited risks. One young person told us that “… if you bet with them, you can get your money back”. Some say that they intend to try gambling in the future if they get a good “deal” from a gambling company and tell us which company they would bet with when they are older.
Young people also say that we should be concerned about advertising well beyond commercial breaks in sport. A new generation of “celebrities” including social media influencers create a perception that gambling is “cool” and is aligned with a winning lifestyle. One 12-year-old told us that young people might think, “if my idol, my favourite YouTuber, Instagrammer, TikToker is gambling maybe I should give it a try”. Social media promotions including on TikTok also appear to appeal increasingly to young women, with a range of novelty markets associated with popular television shows such as MasterChef.
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Importantly, young people and parents recognise that the best way to reduce harm and de-normalise gambling is to implement strong government regulations on advertising to prevent exposure to gambling marketing. They also note that the financial interests of the gambling industry mean that the industry will not significantly change its practices without government intervention. Many support bans similar to those implemented for tobacco.
They also call for sporting codes and athletes to reconsider their relationships with the gambling industry rather than “just doing it for the money”. And they want to see education and health messages that provide honest information about the risks and harms associated with gambling products, helping them to understand deceptive industry tactics rather than defaulting to bland personal responsibility messages at the end of gambling advertisements.
We have seen a cascade of reports demonstrating the predatory nature of the gambling industry. Children, young people and parents understand only too well that marketing for gambling products is designed to appeal to all ages, and to promote an environment in which gambling is seen as a normal and desirable behaviour. As with tobacco, the gambling companies and their lobbyists will oppose anything that might seriously impact on their capacity to promote their products. But as with tobacco 30 years ago, it is time for governments to look beyond the lobbying, and choose policies that protect the health of children over the interests of powerful, harmful corporations.
Samantha Thomas is a professor of public health at the Institute for Health Transformation, Deakin University
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