[HN Gopher] The Australian government has announced gambling adv...
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The Australian government has announced gambling advertising
reforms
Author : gostsamo
Score : 52 points
Date : 2026-04-02 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| babaliauskas wrote:
| Bold move limiting gambling ads to just three per hour. Next up
| light-touch bans on cigarettes where you can only smoke during ad
| breaks.
| angry_octet wrote:
| The ability for Sportsbet to deluge your feed with gambling
| remains unhindered. Their TikTok/Instagram ads are clever and
| unrelenting.
|
| As a consequence there is a quiet crisis in young people,
| 18-30, deeply in debt, working second and third jobs so that
| they have a bit more money to gamble.
| suprjami wrote:
| I'd strongly support a year-based ban on cigarette purchases.
|
| Set the purchase birth year to the current age 18. So DOB 2008
| if done today, if you're born 2009 or later you can't buy
| smokes at all ever.
|
| Within two generations we'd largely eliminate smoking. Within
| three cigarettes would be amongst impossible to get. Great
| public health initiative.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The UK is supposedly doing exactly this. As are a few other
| places.
| asdff wrote:
| Why stop there? Government mandated fitness programs too.
| Government meals. Calories in and out perfectly controlled by
| government scientists. Start getting over weight your food
| ration is cut and you have double duty in the fitness camp.
| Caught with illegal unaccounted for food? Straight to jail.
| Obesity solved in probably 6 months. Trillions saved in
| healthcare costs and hundreds of millions of early deaths
| avoided.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Seatbelts, speed limits, laws against property and personal
| crime, workplace safety regulations,
|
| All government overreach, eh?
| asdff wrote:
| Admittedly, I'm not arguing it any one way or another.
| I'm just presenting what I think is perhaps an
| interesting argument that highlights how the whole
| concept is somewhat arbitrary and ambiguous, resting more
| on ones personal moral positions towards a thing in
| particular than any real underlying logical justification
| shared across similar concepts.
| sanswork wrote:
| It's not interesting at all, you're just choosing to
| ignore externalities.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Smoking affects surrounding people much more than the above
| asdff wrote:
| Obesity does too. You are consuming sometimes twice as
| many calories as what is needed to survive. You put
| strain on medical facilities as well, and increase pooled
| costs of healthcare. Same social ills a smoker puts on
| you. Second hand smoke isn't really a thing anymore with
| indoor smoking bans.
| sanswork wrote:
| Someone being obese doesn't impact my health directly.
| Second hand smoke impacts the kids/family of smokers.
| Second hand smoke impacts everyone walking past the front
| of an office building.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| People that consume more are carbon sinks...
|
| How ludicrous is this argument going to get?
| wredcoll wrote:
| Why stop there? Because we decided to stop there. It's
| really that simple.
| grebc wrote:
| I smoke maybe a pack a year at best. I can't buy smokes
| because some nuffies don't like it? Take a hike.
| nkrisc wrote:
| So it would be a small personal sacrifice for huge societal
| benefit, and you wouldn't even do that?
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| The societal downside of providing yet another revenue
| stream for criminal organisations seems like it might be
| worth taking into consideration.
| toast0 wrote:
| NZ tried that cigarette ban, but walked it back so they could
| get juicy tax revenues.
| https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/28/asia/new-zealand-smoking-
| ban...
|
| Maybe split the difference and raise the purchasing age for
| cigarettes 6 months every year. Takes longer to get to nobody
| can smoke, but you'll get there eventually.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| The (NZ) government that changed the approach is heavily
| loaded with Tobacco friendly Ministers - the expectation is
| that when the government is voted out (no government lasts
| forever) the age based approach will be bought back in.
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| We'd just end up in the same situation as Australia - where
| up to one third of all cigarettes consumed are purchased on
| the black market.
| denkmoon wrote:
| Can we please not keep trying to redo prohibition. Yes it
| costs public health. No you can't stop adults imbibing the
| drugs they want, the only thing you can do is criminalise it
| which makes criminals of sick people. Great work.
| smelendez wrote:
| US has gone to a minimum age of 21. I actually think that's
| enough, along with raising the price and reducing the number
| of places people can smoke.
|
| People generally start smoking by their teens or not at all.
| Making it hard for kids to get exposed to nicotine will stop
| a lot of addiction.
|
| Also way fewer parents have cigarettes in the house so it's
| harder for kids to grab them at home. And there are pretty
| strong taboos nowadays about giving random kids stuff they're
| not supposed to have.
| squigz wrote:
| Would you support the same ban for alcohol?
| NamTaf wrote:
| Finally.
|
| The deluge of gambling ads on TV during Friday night footy is
| absolutely appalling. There's a very robust conduit for
| normalising sports gambling through advertisements around the
| broadcasts and it's clearly influencing young adults. I've
| noticed a dramatic uptick in how common it is compared to when I
| was that age.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I nicknamed ESPN in the US EBetPN
| oezi wrote:
| I see absolutely no upside for a society to allow sports
| betting. The tax revenues don't justify the addiction, debts
| and devastated families.
| milkytron wrote:
| An argument I've heard is that by legalizing betting, it can
| be more easily monitored with regulation and reduce the
| amount of black market betting. People still bet when it's
| illegal, it just becomes harder to track, which makes it
| easier for gamblers to interfere with outcomes without
| detection.
|
| It sounds kind of similar to the legalization of certain
| recreational drugs. For example, alcohol prohibition resulted
| in a massive black market with organized criminal gangs, and
| many places realized it's better to regulate it rather than
| prohibit it.
|
| I think for gambling, we need better regulations, and the
| Australian government seems to think so too.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| The ads are going to continue from 8:30pm on, NRL has a game
| starting at 8pm this evening, the gambling ads will hit just
| before half time under this new legislation
| brotchie wrote:
| Gambling ads are to Australia what Pharmaceutical ads are to the
| USA.
| GlacierFox wrote:
| This is all I see on ad supporteed TV at night here in the UK.
| And half the time during the day. It's a serious problem coupled
| with, I assume, serious lobbyists here in the UK.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Let's hope that they don't burn someone else's house.
|
| https://youtu.be/ZI3zaHUsgXg
|
| https://youtu.be/jZivPIRvi0U
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I'm from italy where we have a ban.
|
| Some companies now make advertisements of news websites that it
| is clear are also part of betting companies. For example,
| https://www.admiralbet.news/ has as other Google result the
| betting website. However, I do have to say it is still less than
| before and it's much better
| clickety_clack wrote:
| Ireland needs this. I don't live there anymore, but the amount of
| ads literally everywhere you go there these days is insane.
|
| Gambling ruins lives.
| Apreche wrote:
| > "Today it's gambling advertising, tomorrow it's alcohol, then
| it's sugary drinks, fast food, critical minerals and who knows
| what else comes next," chief executive Kai Cantwell said.
|
| We have already learned our lesson. Prohibition doesn't work. But
| advertising does work. Banning advertising also works. We should
| allow people the freedom to participate in vice, but ban all
| advertising for it. Anything harmful to society should not be
| advertised. No ads for cars, guns, recreational drugs including
| alcohol, unhealthy food, fossil fuels, or gambling.
|
| Who knows what comes next Kai? Hopefully everything.
| Tarsul wrote:
| I gotta admit I laughed heartily at the quote. I expected the
| slippery slope argument, I did not expect it to be made so
| clumsy :)
|
| btw. what followed is worse: <<He accused the government of
| blindsiding a sector that supports 30,000 jobs and "provides
| critical funding to sport, racing and broadcast industries".>>
|
| Gambling business is not a positive force. It's not even zero
| sum. It's a negative sum game. I hope no one is nodding along
| to these kind of arguments, they are nonsensical.
| jmyeet wrote:
| > Prohibition doesn't work.
|
| Actually, it did work [1]:
|
| > Courtwright's The Age of Addiction has the statistics: "Per
| capita consumption initially fell to 30 percent of pre-
| Prohibition levels, before gradually increasing to 60 or 70
| percent by 1933." That suggests a 30 percent reduction, at a
| minimum, in consumption -- although that was less than the
| initial effect, as people figured some ways around the law.
|
| > We should allow people the freedom to participate in vice.
|
| There is literally no individual upside to gambling and don't
| say "winning". For sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, you get
| banned or your bet sizes severelyl restricted if you
| consistently win [2]. Why? Because it discourages the marks if
| they don't win occasionally.
|
| Suicide rate is highest among gambling addicts than any other
| form of addiction [3]. Gambling measurably increases credit
| score drops, debts and bankruptcies [4]. The entire business is
| predatory.
|
| At least back in the day when you had to go to a casino there
| was some barrier to gambling. Now? Just pull out your phone.
|
| [1]: https://archive.ph/l8m4E#selection-885.0-889.319
|
| [2]: https://www.elitepickz.com/blog/do-sportsbooks-ban-
| winners-a...
|
| [3]: https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-
| gambl...
|
| [4]: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/online-sports-
| gamb...
| beloch wrote:
| "TV ads from betting agencies will be capped at three per hour,
| between 6am and 8:30pm"
|
| -----------
|
| And thus, the ten minute Australian gambling ad was born.
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(page generated 2026-04-02 23:00 UTC)