The Albanese Government officially responded to the Murphy Review of online gambling in the shadows of the Federal Budget, a move that some have described as 'cowardly'. While the reforms themselves are half measures and timid and will not protect Australians from gambling harm, particularly our children, there were some elements that should be acknowledged and applauded.
Fri 15 May 2026 01.00 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The Albanese Government officially responded to the Murphy Review of online gambling in the shadows of the Federal Budget.
In a move some described as ‘cowardly’ and ‘strange’, the report on the government’s proposed gambling reforms was tabled while journalists were literally locked up (in the pre-Budget lockup).
It reflects the ambiguity of a government that hails its gambling reforms as ground-breaking but appears determined to avoid scrutiny.
In the same way the Prime Minister detailed the proposed changes at the National Press Club in a speech (given the day before Good Friday) that was dominated by the implications of war in the Middle East.
While the reforms themselves are half measures and timid and will not protect Australians from gambling harm, particularly our children, there were some elements that should be acknowledged and applauded.
The Prime Minister is absolutely right that we need to do more to stop children being exposed to gambling ads, and to break the nexus between betting and sport.
This acknowledgment is a watershed and significant departure from the position of Australian governments, of both political persuasions, for the last 30 years.
Australia has allowed gambling companies to run riot in Australia, and in doing so, we have created a tragic experiment where we have exposed generations of people to a gambling advertising blitz consisting of up to a million ads a year.
It is why we have the biggest gambling problem in the world – with gambling losses totalling $32 billion annually – far exceeding on a per capita basis any other country on the planet.
More recently, the explosion in sports betting in recent years has not only led to one in five men aged 18-24 years developing serious gambling problems, it has also enveloped our children.
Research by The Australia Institute shows that more than 600,000 kids (aged 12-17) are betting more than $18 million every year. More kids are actually betting on sports than playing some of our most popular forms of organised sport.
Even young kids can identify the colours and logos of betting agencies.
An endless array of gambling ads has driven this gambling crisis, as have the deep connections between sport and betting.
So the Prime Minister is right to highlight these as key elements to our national gambling problems.
And plans to ban gambling advertising in sports stadiums and on players’ uniforms is also welcome.
There is also a plan to ban gambling ads online on those sites where they do not offer the user the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of gambling ads.
For sites where you register or log-on, they will have to provide an option for users to opt-out of receiving gambling advertising.
It is curious that the government didn’t instead make this an ‘opt-in’ opportunity to receive gambling advertising – most likely because no parent in their right mind would opt in to receive gambling adverts.
This is a big flaw. And of course, the restrictions on free-to-air television gambling advertising are very weak.
We will still see three gambling ads an hour, and so will our kids. Can you imagine if the government allowed the broadcast of three cigarette ads every hour?
And after 8.30pm, including during live sport, there will be no cap at all on gambling ads, so we will be bombarded with gambling advertising.
But at the core of the problem with the government’s gambling reform package. It failed to recognise gambling as a public health issue – as Australia did with tobacco more than three decades ago.
Apart from the fact the government failed to take the opportunity to implement a full ad ban on gambling – on broadcast and online – as we did with tobacco advertising there are also some other glaring failings.
What the government didn’t do was implement all 31 recommendations of the parliamentary committee into online gambling, led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.
There was no ban on inducements. Whenever someone stops gambling of their own volution, they are sent endless incentives to start up again. Often this is in the form of free bets worth thousands of dollars.
The government’s package also did not include a commitment to create a national gambling regulator.
A key reason that Australianas are the biggest gambling losers in the world is not that we like a punt more than other countries, but because we have some of the weakest legal protections and some of the weakest enforcement.
The government will now need to pass this rather timid package of reforms through the Parliament.
There is an opportunity now for the Opposition to bolster the protections that our children need against gambling ads and to really break the nexus between gambling and sport.
We still have an opportunity for this Parliament to pass gambling reforms that can protect people from an industry that is ruthless in its pursuit of profit and predatory in the way it targets people – including our kids.
At last, the government has broken the 1000-day silence on gambling reform (the time since it received the Murphy Report recommendations).
Now we hope for even more boldness and true gambling reform from our Federal political leaders.
Martin Thomas is the CEO of The Alliance for Gambling Reform
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The Government has now released its formal response to the Australian parliament’s inquiry into online gambling and gambling advertising. The response was tabled in Parliament at about 4pm on the Tuesday afternoon that most of Parliamentary press pack were locked in a room without their phones or laptops so that they could read an advanced copy of the budget.
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