Australians are sick of gambling ads - not only are they annoying to watch every ad break, but most importantly they cause harm. We can’t watch a game of sport without being bombarded by gambling ads, and no child under 13 has watched a major sporting event without gambling ads. It needs to change.

The gambling industry has poured $50 million into political donations at the Commonwealth level in the last decade; we can no longer allow our political leaders to be captured by this harmful industry. That’s why in 2022 the Alliance launched our federal election campaign, with this policy platform. We called for candidates to commit to the following:

• Ban Sports Gambling Advertising across all broadcast platforms,

• Close loopholes that allow gambling using credit cards,

• Create a national casino regulator and online gambling ombudsman

• Stop political donations from the gambling industry

It is with these reforms we can tackle this crisis head on and the federal election was a key moment for our movement to get gambling reform on the agenda.

Like many, we worked tirelessly in the lead up to the election, focusing on the four key electorates of Kooyong, Goldstein, Bradfield and North Sydney. We reached out to candidates, posted stickers with our campaign QR code and our Chief Advocate, Tim Costello wrote an opinion piece which you can read here and spoke to the media about the need for change during a very jam packed media month!

We heard back from multiple crossbenchers and independents and they supported our calls to end gambling ads and ensure a stronger integrity agenda! We are looking forward to working with the ALP government to see strong reform of our currently dysfunctional political donation system. A Federal political integrity commission should provide an avenue to pursue this.

As an organisation we’re looking forward to continuing to build this movement with the opportunities this election result brings. The time for change is now, we stamped tobacco out of sport. Now we’ll work with federal politicians, sporting codes and broadcasters to #EndGamblingAds.

If you haven’t already, be sure to sign our petition, keep up to date with the campaign and be notified about ways to take action: Sign the petition - End Gambling Ads

Carol Bennett CEO, Alliance for Gambling Reform