• Sausages and cauldrons: Making law and policy in 21st Century Australia

    David Rowe     |      December 2, 2024

    The divergent fates of proposed federal legislation to restrict social media use by children and online gambling adverts for everyone highlight the complex interplay of public concern, political convenience and vested interest lobbying which shapes policy making in contemporary Australia.

  • The biggest game in town

    Open Forum     |      October 26, 2024

    The global health impact of commercial gambling is worse than previously understood and stronger regulatory controls are needed, according to a new Lancet Public Health Commission report.

  • Gambling fast and slow

    Matthew Rockloff     |      October 21, 2024

    Just as there is ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ thinking, so there are ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ ways to gamble and, unsurprisingly, it’s the adrenaline hits delivered by poker machines and sports betting which are most likely to lead gamblers into trouble.

  • Gambling’s not a game

    Elizabeth Baldwin     |      September 7, 2024

    The gambling industry reaps billions of dollars from Australians every year without any regard for the social harm or individual misery it leaves in its wake.

  • Rigging the odds against gambling reform

    Ross Gordon     |      August 18, 2024

    Gambling, like tobacco and alcohol before it, causes massive social harm, so why is the government so reluctant to ban gambling advertising?

  • Addressing Australia’s gambling problem

    Patrick Whyte     |      October 28, 2023

    A QUT researcher has called for stronger government policy to regulate the online gambling environment, restrict marketing, establish behaviour change programs and provide better support for people with a gambling problem.

  • Cracking down on gambling

    Charles Livingstone     |      July 1, 2023

    Proposals to limit the power and reach of the gambling lobby are long overdue, given the harm it wreaks on individuals, families and society as a whole.

  • Give gambling ads the boot from sport

    Charles Livingstone     |      May 20, 2023

    Society gained from removing tobacco advertising from our TV screens and billboards and we should treat the pernicious and ubiquitous gambling adverts which have infected sport just the same.

  • Gambling’s a bad bet for sport

    Carolyn Holbrook     |      March 8, 2023

    Online gambling companies are ploughing huge amounts of money into advertising, taking the position – and causing the harm – that tobacco companies once specialised in.

  • NSW gambles on pokie reform

    Charles Livingstone     |      February 9, 2023

    Servicing drug dealers and preying on the bored, gullible and socially disadvantaged, NSW’s 89,000 poker machines raked in A$7.5 billion last year, and new measures from the state government look to clamp down on the system.

  • Gambling with our children’s future

    Charles Livingstone     |      November 12, 2022

    Gambling adverts on social and traditional media need to be heavily restricted, if not stopped altogether to save another generation from harm.

  • Sport must break its gambling addiction

    Charles Livingstone     |      November 7, 2022

    Gambling adverts pollute and pervert Australian coverage of sport to such a degree that much tougher action is needed to limit their corrosive influence on society.