Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the prevalence of gambling advertising and marketing affiliates, their predatory behaviours and the impact they can have on particularly vulnerable people. Over the years, researchers have increased our awareness of particularly concerning aspects of gambling marketing, including dangerous narratives around risk and control, the normalisation of gambling in sport and the use of increasingly complex bets which result in more frequent losses. However, there has been very little research into the role of gambling marketing affiliates and the role they play in encouraging risky gambling behaviours.

These affiliates are individuals or companies who are financially rewarded by gambling bookmakers for advertising and directing new customers to a particular product or brand. Affiliates either receive a one-off payment for every new customer or they receive an ongoing share of the gambler's losses for as long as the person remains an active customer. These affiliates' share of the losses can be up to 30 per cent. For an affiliate, they make money when their customers lose money. This is big business. Affiliates spend big to entice new customers. In the UK, it was estimated that affiliates spend over 300 million pounds each year on advertising, representing 20 per cent of the entire gambling industry's marketing spend.

Affiliates also strategically market themselves to maximise business. Some brand themselves as 'experts', who provide tips, information results and betting comparisons. Many gamblers, and particularly younger and more inexperienced gamblers, seek out these so-called experts to help guide them, likely unaware of the incentives the affiliate has to get them to spend up. When an affiliate has such an obvious conflict of interest, how could these tips be sincere?

Other affiliates build a community around them. They share their own stories of winning big or near wins, disguising their marketing intent and making them appear as if they are a peer who shares the common goal of beating the bookmaker. There is a complete lack of transparency around their intent.

Then we have the VIP managers from sports betting companies who intentionally target vulnerable people already experiencing gambling addiction. This was demonstrated clearly in the case of Mr Fineff earlier this year, who shared his experiences of being targeted by VIP managers who offered him up to $50,000 in free bets and even advised him to sign up under a false name to get around the income verification processes. Mr Fineff was offered millions of dollars in matched bets and bonus money by three gambling agencies and received countless other rewards and promises for further VIP treatments. This is deceitful, dishonest and predatory advertising practice, a practice that mandates aggressive targeting of potential gamblers and rewards marketing affiliates for doing so. They are simply profiting off the harm of gambling addiction.

While we have regulations in place around gambling ads on television and on billboards, it appears that affiliates operate in a regulatory grey zone. We need strong regulations that hold gambling operators accountable for the actions of their affiliates who are advertising their products. As more people switch to online gambling, in particular younger people who may be more easily influenced, it's important we uncover the predatory nature of these marketing practices and ensure affiliates are appropriately regulated and gambling operators are held accountable. We need to make sure that our laws and regulations are keeping up with the operations of gambling proprietors, of those that seek to exploit a gambling addiction and, in fact—let's be honest—encourage people to spend more money, to lose more money, so that they can benefit. Affiliates are operating in this grey space. We need better regulation and then better enforcement of that regulation and of existing regulations.