Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sport) | Hansard source

I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Introduction

This bill will introduce a meaningful and impactful suite of reforms to protect Australians, particularly children and young people, from gambling harms.

It will help minimise children's exposure to wagering advertising, while also reducing the overall saturation of advertising on radio and television, and the targeting and saturation of advertising online.

The bill also contains provisions to disrupt illegal gambling operators, strengthen BetStop—the National Exclusion Register—and crack down on damaging and emerging online lottery products.

Context

The reason is clear: gambling advertising restrictions have not kept pace with community expectations.

People are seeing too many ads, particularly during children and family programs and live sports events.

For Australians who don't want to participate in gambling or see gambling ads, they have become inescapable and constant.

The Albanese government wants Aussie kids to be able to participate in sport—whether that's cheering on their team, knowing the stats of their favourite player or having a kick down at their local sporting field.

And we want them to be able to do this without being bombarded with gambling promotion.

With this bill, the government is acting to reduce children's exposure to gambling ads, reduce the targeting and saturation of advertising online and break the nexus between sport and gambling.

The gambling reform bill 2026 comprises five schedules that deliver on the government's commitments.

Advertising ban

Schedule 1 is a comprehensive package of restrictions to tackle the proliferation of gambling advertising, helping keep our kids' eyes and ears free from those ads.

This includes legislating a ban on the broadcast of wagering ads during live coverage of sporting events between 6 am and 8.30 pm and banning the broadcasting of odds.

It is clear that there are too many ads on TV. In 2024 the number was as high as eight ads in a single hour.

This is why we are making sure people are no longer saturated with gambling ads by capping the number at three per hour between 6 am and 8.30 pm.

We are also ensuring our kids won't be hearing gambling ads on the drive to and from school by banning advertising on the radio during these times.

And when these ads are broadcast we will ban advertising content that includes harmful or misleading information.

The government will also ban gambling ads online.

This ban applies to any online site, including on social media, news websites, Spotify and podcasts, streaming services, YouTube, and in search.

The only exception will be if you are logged in, are over 18 and have an option to opt out of seeing these ads.

This triple-lock approach means kids won't see ads online.

And it means that people who don't want to see gambling ads online—whether they are watching a streaming service, scrolling Instagram or searching for a recipe on Google—can opt out of seeing them.

It will be up to online platforms to implement these restrictions, and, if they choose not to, then the rules are clear: they can't show gambling ads at any time, to anyone.

Sport ban

The government is determined to act on the nexus that has formed between our love of the game and the push to gamble.

Our sport stars have gambling logos on their uniforms. There are banners promoting gambling on the field.

Australians love their sport.

But they don't love constantly seeing gambling advertising throughout a game.

This bill will put a stop to that.

We will legislate rules to ensure no ads appear during play at any time of day.

And we will make Australian sport a gambling-ad free space by banning ads on sporting uniforms and at sporting venues. This includes at training, at press conferences and at amateur and grassroots sports events.

Celebrities and Influencers

Gambling companies are regularly finding new ways to advertise.

The Albanese government's reforms will address this.

We will ban notable people including athletes, celebrities and influencers from promoting gambling.

We have used broad definitions in the legislation to reflect the fact that the nature of celebrities is changing.

We know gambling companies are targeting young people through influencers on social media.

The changes in this bill will put a stop to that. It doesn't matter how many followers they have or which platform they use.

Under this law a gambling company cannot enter into an arrangement with an influencer to promote gambling to their followers.

Offshore Gambling

Schedule 2 provisions will enhance the ability to disrupt illegal gambling services.

We have already taken action against these gambling services, which operate outside Australian law without the important consumer protections that exist here, with more than 1,700 illegal gambling websites blocked since 2019.

But the current settings are unwieldly and inhibit the independent regulator, ACMA, from investigating and responding rapidly.

The amendments in schedule 2 will improve the government's ability to tackle illegal gambling through four key mechanisms:

1. Placing an obligation on financial institutions to block transfers from Australian bank accounts to accounts that belong to illegal gambling operators.

2. Enabling ACMA to share information with financial institutions to assist them to block transactions.

3. Placing an obligation on digital services, including search engines and app providers, to block access and advertising to illegal gambling services online.

4. Enabling ACMA to issue 24-hour take-down notices to these digital services and influencers to assist it with weeding out the promotion and access to these illegal gambling services.

BetStop

Schedule 3 will strengthen the operation of BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register—an important piece of the government's gambling harm reduction measures.

BetStop enables people to self-exclude from all Australian-licensed online and telephone wagering providers.

Since its launch in 2023, BetStop has had over 65,000 registrations, with over 39,000 Australians currently self-excluded from gambling, many of whom have spoken about the positive impact it has had on their lives.

But this critical service can be even stronger and more effective.

The world is changing rapidly, and gambling companies are taking advantage of this.

The changes in this bill will ensure BetStop can keep up with emerging and future technologies so when people opt out of marketing it isn't just email and texts but also includes apps and push notifications.

BetStop will also be empowered to adapt to new ways that these companies might seek to market information in the future.

It will deliver on all the legislative recommendations of the statutory review of BetStop and improve clarity, user experience and safety outcomes.

Lottery and keno changes

Schedule 4 introduces amendments to tackle harmful online lottery-style products.

Keno

Many people in this parliament have spoken of the harm caused by problem gambling on poker machines.

Of great concern to the government is the opportunity for that harm to extend into people's pockets, on their phones.

That is why the government is committed to banning online keno through this bill.

These 'pocket pokies' have a rapid-draw format, high frequency of play and high spending limits.

They have a capacity to cause significant harm, with people able to lose up to $1,000 every three minutes.

There is no community benefit from people participating in these games online, and we make no apologies for taking a strong stand.

Foreign matched lotteries

This bill also takes decisive action against foreign matched lotteries by banning them from operating in Australia.

Eight years ago, this parliament came together in a bipartisan effort to ban what was then the primary form of foreign lottery operations in our market: lottery betting services.

On the initiative of the former coalition government, the parliament rightly recognised that these foreign operations undermined crucial income streams, not just for state governments, but for thousands of small businesses across Australia. They threatened our newsagents, pharmacies, pubs, RSLs and community clubs.

As then Minister Fletcher observed at the time in relation to foreign lotteries, they 'provide little taxation revenue and no benefits to the thousands of small business owners across Australia'.

Since those important reforms, new players have entered the market and are using loopholes to find their way around the laws this parliament delivered.

Under the new operating model, instead of offering bets on the outcome of a foreign lottery, these companies act as middlemen, offering to buy a physical ticket in the foreign lottery on the customer's behalf. If an Australian customer wins, the company claims the prize overseas and say they will forward the winnings back home.

While the mechanics have changed, the threat to Australian small businesses remains the same. That is unacceptable.

The government is also deeply concerned by the opaque arrangements underpinning this foreign matched lottery model.

Media reports reveal that one Australian operation was acquiring its US tickets through a single establishment, the Pit Stop Sports Bar & Grill on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.

According to media reports, a single individual, acting under a power of attorney, was responsible for making every single winning claim.

We have profound concerns about this model.

First, the US operators of these lotteries do not want the participation of offshore buyers or lottery couriers.

In fact, a number of US authorities have actively amended their rules to explicitly exclude them and prevent winnings from being paid out to these entities.

If an Australian citizen were to win a major jackpot, we cannot have any confidence these rules would not be invoked to deny the payout.

Second, even if a major win were technically permitted under the rules, a jackpot of magnitude would raise serious questions about whether these opaque contractual arrangements would actually be honoured.

Third, if there is a default and those winnings are withheld, an Australian winner would be left stranded with potentially no viable legal remedy to recover their money.

It is simply not clear that the companies offering these lotteries in Australia have the balance sheets to make good on a billion-dollar jackpot if the overseas operator or agent cannot or will not pay.

An unchecked default of this scale would shatter the trust Australians place in regulated lotteries, including those run by states and territories and by Australian charities. This would flow directly through to thousands of small businesses, potentially having a catastrophic effect on those relying on foot traffic and commissions from lotteries conducted in Australia.

This parliament cannot, and should not, sit idly by and wait for that to happen.

This bill ensures that we close the loophole, protect consumers and back our local small businesses.

Trade promotion lotteries

Just as we are taking action on foreign matched lotteries, we are also acting on fake domestic lotteries

In recent years, we've seen a proliferation online of fake lotteries operating under the guise of trade promotions.

They are fake because, unlike an official lottery, the rules are never clear.

There are genuine lotteries that operate under trade promotion rules. For example, McDonald's FIFA World Cup ticket giveaway, or a competition to win free groceries when you spend at a supermarket chain.

The difference is these genuine lotteries are focused on promoting actual goods and services, and you don't have to buy a ticket in the lottery if you just want to buy the product.

Fake lotteries ask you to enter a lottery as a requirement to gain access to the thing they are promoting, whether that's discounts, extra services or entry into the lottery itself.

They have murky payment arrangements, where people can become trapped in monthly fees that are hard to extract themselves from.

And worse, we have seen cases where these lotteries aren't operating properly under state laws, meaning that even those who win these lotteries are losing out.

We saw this in South Australia where a woman thought she had won a $3.5 million property through one of these fake trade promotion lotteries and couldn't actually access this 'win' because the company was operating without the proper state licences.

The harm done to entrants from these fake lotteries is one thing, but there is also broader harm to our society through the impact they are having on charities.

Charity lotteries estimate these fake lotteries diverted more than $60 million from the charity sector in 2024.

These vital charities are suffering, and that's why we are acting.

The common thread, through our action on foreign matched and fake lotteries, is the recognition that the right to run a lottery in Australia is a privilege.

Governments have long recognised that, while the chance of winning a lottery may be low, it should not be zero, and it should be fair.

Because otherwise, running a lottery becomes a licence to print money—and consumers are the losers.

Conclusion

Australians love their sport; we are a sporting nation.

But Australians want to know they can sit down and watch sport or their favourite show without being inundated with gambling advertising, either on the TV, online or on the field.

These are important reforms and we are proud as a government to be reducing gambling harm.

There will be views from some members who, while they agree with the reform direction will say it does not go far enough.

My message to them is this: if you believe in banning online keno, if you believe in supporting charities, if you believe in supporting local newsagents and if you believe in reducing gambling ads, support this bill.

Finally, I'd like to say a few words about someone who was a valued member of this house, and a close friend—not only to me but to many of my Labor colleagues.

Peta Murphy was a passionate advocate for her community on issues from healthcare to employment, and on gambling harm reduction.

The work she did as chair of the Inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm has had a significant impact on Australia, including through the strong measures we deliver today.

Debate adjourned.

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