Sporting codes fight Government’s proposed restrictions on gambling advertising on TV – ABC Online

Posted April 19, 2017 19:38:40

Australia's major sporting codes have launched a furious rearguard action to try and stop the Turnbull Government from restricting gambling advertising on television.

The ABC understands Cabinet is poised to limit the times when gambling ads can be shown on both free to air and pay TV.

The plan has met stiff resistance from both, with the free to air networks demanding relief from Commonwealth licence fees if the move goes ahead.

But the biggest forces standing against the planned changes are Australia's largest sporting codes.

Last Wednesday, Australian Football League chief executive Gillon McLachlan and the National Rugby League's second in command, Nick Weeks, met with the Communications Minister Mitch Fifield in Melbourne.

Both argued that curtailing gambling advertising will slash the value of the television rights their codes attract.

The National Rugby League also has a commercial deal with Sportsbet worth $60 million, and half of the league's 16 teams have a corporate bookmaker as a major sponsor.

The AFL has a $10 million a year deal with CrownBet.

The codes also argued that the change risked the integrity agreements struck with Australian-based licensed betting agencies; which impose information sharing arrangements on the bookmakers and ensure the AFL and NRL can monitor and police any gambling by players, coaches and staff.

The codes said the risk was that betting operations would go offshore and that control would be lost.

The ABC has been told that Cricket Australia has also been lobbying against the change.

An Easter weekend rearguard action by the football codes might have had the effect of stalling ministerial deliberations because an answer was expected by Wednesday. But the ABC understands there is a mood in Government for further restrictions.

And that could pit the Government against a mighty foe.

Topics: gambling, community-and-society, advertising-and-marketing, advertising, industry, sports-organisations, information-and-communication, federal-government, sport, business-economics-and-finance, australia

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Sporting codes fight Government's proposed restrictions on gambling advertising on TV - ABC Online