Australian politicians received about a$245,000 ($147,000) in match tickets from major sporting leagues over two years by the country’s most popular sporting leagues as part of a lobbying campaign against a proposed ban on advertising of online gambling, according to Reuters calculations based on government documents.
Lobbying by the gambling industry against the ban has been reported previously in the media but the calculation of the total value of tickets declared by politicians in the parliamentary gift register shows the role played by sporting bodies and provides a dollar amount for the first time.
Labour Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had promised a crackdown on gambling advertising following a 2023 parliamentary inquiry ordered by his government that recommended a “comprehensive ban on all forms of advertising for online gambling”.
But he took the issue off the legislative agenda late last year and has left it to be considered by a new parliament to be formed following a May 3 general election that his party is tipped to win by a narrow margin. Polls show that three-quarters of Australians want a ban.
“We know vested interests have been lobbying hard to prevent a ban and the level of soft diplomacy revealed by this analysis of declared gifts to politicians is deeply concerning,” said David Pocock, an independent senator.
“It is appalling that 18 months after the landmark report into online gambling harm, and after a full term of a Labor government, the prime minister has failed to take any meaningful action to ban gambling advertising.”
Albanese and the AFL did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. The NRL declined to comment.
Such lobbying is not illegal in Australia but individual gifts worth over A$300 received by parliamentarians must be reported to the prime minister’s office, which maintains the parliamentary gift register, a public database.
It shows that politicians from both Australia’s main parties received 312 free tickets between June 28, 2023, when the government report recommended a ban on online gambling advertisements, and March 28 this year when parliament was dissolved.
There was no price ascribed to the tickets but calculations were done via value based on the cheapest corporate box seat. The calculations were verified by Hunter Fujak, senior lecturer in sports management at Deakin University, and Tim Harcourt, chief economist at the University of Technology, Sydney’s Centre for Sport, Business and Society
“It’s a reasonable estimate, probably on the conservative side,” Harcourt said.
PM, OPPOSITION LEADER GIVEN TICKETS
Albanese received A$29,000 worth of tickets, mostly to grand finals and games played by his NRL home team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, the gift register showed.
Peter Dutton, leader of the opposition conservative coalition, received A$21,350 of tickets during the period, the register shows.
Dutton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The gifted tickets over the 21-month period compared with tickets worth an estimated A$234,000 given to politicians in the previous parliamentary term from 2019 to 2022, although sports attendance at that time was impacted by COVID-19 shutdowns. Data before 2019 was not available.
Australians lose the most on gambling in the world on a per capita basis, government data shows. Consultancy H2 Gambling Capital estimates gamblers in Australia will lose A$34 billion in 2025. The country’s sports bodies benefit because, unlike in many other countries, they take a percentage cut of money gambled on their games. They also earn revenues from sponsorship and broadcast rights.
