Communications minister Anika Wells has said she is prepared to negotiate amendments to Labor’s online sports betting advertising bill, even as the government faces pressure from the Coalition and the Greens to strengthen controls on financial inducements for betting.
Wells said she would wait for the Coalition to settle its position and put forward amendments, saying that was how legislation usually moved through Parliament. She also said she was having constructive discussions and wanted the bill to pass.
The dispute sharpened after a two-day Senate inquiry heard evidence from former NRL player Luke Bateman and anti-gambling campaigner Tim Costello. They alleged that problem gamblers were supplied with cocaine, alcohol and sex workers to keep them betting.
The report said those allegations were tied to efforts by VIP managers to keep big-spending punters betting for as long as possible. Betting companies that appeared before the inquiry later said there was no evidence to support the claims.
Bateman told the inquiry he had been flown interstate to race days, where alcohol and food were provided all day, and said a VIP manager had asked him what drugs he wanted for the weekend. He also said he had been offered personalised inducements, including bonus bets, and that VIP account managers sent him betting offers directly. The Guardian reported that Bateman estimated his gambling losses at about $1 million, after earning $400,000 a year and accumulating debts of more than $250,000.
Costello made broader allegations about a problem gambler he said had been offered drugs, escorts, free accommodation and betting incentives by TAB, Sportsbet and Sydney’s Star casino. He said the man was TAB’s biggest customer, was given $50,000 in bonus bets and was flown to grand finals.
Sportsbet and Tabcorp rejected the allegations. Sportsbet’s director of corporate affairs said the company had “zero evidence of the allegations”, while Tabcorp’s head of government affairs said the provision of illicit drugs, sex workers and alcohol was not part of its customer offering.
The political pressure is coming from both sides of the chamber. The Coalition has said it will seek crucial amendments before supporting the legislation, and shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson has called the bill riddled with deficiencies and said it must be significantly amended.
Henderson has argued that Labor’s proposal weakens the former Coalition government’s 2018 broadcast and online ban on gambling ads during live sport, and removes the five-minute gambling ad blackout that now applies before and after live sport between 5am and 8.30pm. She has also raised concern about up to three gambling ads an hour during children’s television programming and about opt-out rules on streaming platforms.
Labor is not united either. Backbench MPs Louise Miller-Frost and Alicia Payne have said the draft laws should be significantly strengthened, while Jerome Laxale has said he would welcome tougher provisions in the Senate.
The ABC reported that a senior Labor source said the government was unlikely to entertain major rewrites and that the bill might be pulled, leaving existing restrictions in place. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had said in July that if the laws were not passed, the alternative was the status quo.
The proposed package would limit gambling ads on television to three an hour between 6am and 8.30pm, ban logos on player jerseys and promotions in stadiums, and add a “triple lock” system to block under-age Australians from seeing gambling ads while giving adults an opt-out across online platforms.
The broader case for tighter rules is set out in the Murphy inquiry’s final report. Recommendation 16 called for the government to prohibit all online gambling inducements and inducement advertising without delay, and the April 2026 impact analysis repeated that recommendation.
That analysis said Australians lost about $32.2 billion on legal forms of gambling in 2023-24, the highest losses per capita in the world at around $1,521. It said wagering accounted for $8.4 billion, or 26% of total gambling losses, up from $3 billion, or 16%, in 2010-11.
It also said gambling prevalence rose, with 65% of Australian adults saying in 2025 that they had gambled at least once in the previous 12 months, up from 57% in 2019. The share of Australians at risk of gambling harm rose from 11% to 15% between 2019 and 2024.
The analysis said exposure to wagering advertising had the greatest impact on betting behaviour among people aged 18 to 34 and those at risk of harm. Among those at risk, half increased their betting after exposure, 28% changed what they bet on or tried a new form of betting, and 29% bet on impulse.
Labor’s own conference last month also agreed to explore ways to stop online gaming and social media platforms from offering embedded inducements inside games and accounts aimed at normalising gambling among children and young people.
Industry remains hostile to any further clampdown. Responsible Wagering Australia chief executive Kai Cantwell has called additional bans on inducements a non-starter and argued that inducements and promotions serve different purposes, including product differentiation and customer loyalty.
