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Gambling companies are using social media to normalise betting and promote it as fun and harmless. A recent Deakin University study found that the tactic was aimed at women, using influencers and lifestyle marketing. Professor Samantha Thomas co-authored the report and says the government is putting the interests of gambling companies ahead of the wellbeing of Australian youth.

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00:02So traditionally, we think about this as something that is definitely targeted to young men.
00:07But my team at Deakin, over the last few years, have been mapping and monitoring the range of
00:14different tactics that we are seeing from the gambling industry that are starting to target
00:18young women. Now, this shouldn't be a surprise to us. We saw this happen with the tobacco industry
00:23and the alcohol industry, where they try and expand their market to create a bigger customer
00:29base. And targeting young women is definitely something that we are seeing starting to come
00:35through on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, creating a whole lot of really
00:40female friendly marketing tactics that we hear from young women are starting to normalise gambling
00:46for them, just like we've seen for young men. So novelty bets are things like betting on the outcome
00:51of maths or Love Island. We've seen ones where you can bet on which dress Rihanna would wear when she
00:58sang at the halftime of the Super Bowl. So these types of marketing are really catchy. They're fun.
01:05You think, you know, I could have a go at that. That's something that I think I would be good
01:08at.
01:08And we definitely see young women say that they will download the app to have a go. Now, once they
01:15do that, what happens is that the gambling companies have access to your email address, your contact
01:21details and can target you with a whole range of different types of products and promotions. And so
01:27what young women are telling us is not only does this make gambling seem more socially acceptable, but
01:33it's a really slippery slope. They find themselves betting on things that they never would have imagined
01:38themselves betting on before. They were aware that they were increasingly being targeted or these ads were
01:44increasingly appealing to them. But one of the really interesting things that I think we're seeing with things
01:49like TikTok reels is that they look like any other small video that you would see on social media or
01:57on
01:57TikTok. So as you're scrolling through, it's not always obvious that this is an ad. Sometimes they're
02:03promoted by influencers and it may not be clear to young women that this is actually a promotion.
02:10And that's a really, really seductive form of marketing for young women, particularly when we've got
02:15something like a cost of living crisis where they're starting to think of ways that they can make
02:19money as well. There was a report released, which was the result of a big inquiry into online
02:26gambling and particularly the tactics of the online gambling industry. And this report is commonly known
02:30to as the Murphy Report. And the Murphy Report recommended that we actually needed a comprehensive ban on
02:37gambling advertising across all forms of platforms, not just TV, because they heard evidence that we would see the
02:44gambling industry shift to these new platforms and engage in a whole range of new promotions that would target,
02:51in this case, young women to expand their market. Now, despite there being huge public support for bans on
02:58gambling advertising, we know also there is huge public support for this as well in the parliament. The prime minister
03:05has
03:05chosen not to respond to that report. And as as at the moment, we see no inclination at all from
03:13the prime minister to act on those
03:14comprehensive findings. So what we're seeing is that the interests of these gambling companies, the sporting codes and the
03:22broadcasters are being put over the interests of the health and wellbeing, particularly of our young people in Australia. And
03:28that's
03:28something that I think needs to change.
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