Callum stopped gambling a year ago. Sportsbet is still trying to lure him back
- by Admin
- July 29, 2024
Callum feels the familiar vibration of his mobile phone. Another text from Sportsbet.
The name of Australia’s most popular gambling app — official betting partner of the AFL and NRL — has become synonymous with major sport on TV.
Callum hasn’t placed a wager for more than a year. Sportsbet is still trying to lure him back into action with an almost daily stream of text messages.
“There’s an AFL deal on right now,” he tells me, holding up his phone.
We’re sat in his car, having a quiet chat about his gambling addiction.
It seems surprising that he hasn’t tried to stop the texts.
He could do so by registering with the federal self-exclusion register BetStop, which has been operating since August last year.
Callum admits he wasn’t even aware that was an option.
He’s confident he can resist the siren call, pointing out it would take him several deliberate steps to fire up the gambling app again.
Many gamblers aren’t so strong.
For Callum, seeing the texts “makes me feel a bit sick in my stomach — it makes me think of all the bad times and the losses” and helps him abstain.
“I think I’ve identified in myself what my issue is with gambling.”
But those texts keep coming, sometimes several times a day.
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Monash University gambling researcher Charles Livingstone says such inducements to gamble have been banned in many countries.
Banning them in Australia “without delay” was one of the 31 recommendations of a report on gambling from a multi-party committee led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.
You Win Some, You Lose More, dubbed the Murphy report, was handed to the federal government in June last year.
Dr Livingstone says it was endorsed without dissent by committee members of all political persuasions.
“Despite this unanimous agreement, nothing has happened.”
‘It’s not like buying soap powder — it’s addictive’
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Now he has stopped gambling, Callum says SportsBet’s inducements have come to feel predatory.
“For sure, 100 per cent. They’ll send you [a text saying], ‘Hey, we’ll give you a $50 bonus bet if you do this survey for us,'” he said.
“They pay you to do a survey, then personalise all the rewards and ads specifically for you to keep you intertwined and keep you gambling, so definitely predatory and personal.”
Dr Livingston agrees inducements are predatory marketing.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. If you want to bet, you can bet. I don’t see why they should be constantly enticing you,” he said.
“Gambling is not an ordinary commodity. It’s not like buying soap powder — it’s addictive. They know it’s addictive, their best customers are people who are addicted to it.
“And yet these companies are permitted to continue offering people these sorts of inducements, which can unfortunately sway people’s better judgement and lure them back into something that they’d rather not be engaged with.”
Asked why he thought the federal government had not yet acted on the Murphy report, Dr Livingstone said most of its recommendations — including a three-year phase out of gambling ads — face stiff resistance from sporting codes and the gambling industry.
“It’s clear that the minister is consulting widely with the gambling industry and others from the gambling ecosystem — such as the sporting bodies and the broadcast media — but has not really done a great deal of consultation with public health people and people like me who are concerned about gambling harm and how best to prevent it,” he said.
A Sportsbet spokesperson said the company is not made aware when “an individual customer” deletes their app.
“Sportsbet has several safer gambling tools in place for customers, including Take A Break. While their account is on a break or deactivated, customers do not receive communications or promotions, and are unable to use our service,” the spokesperson said.
“During the 2023 committee inquiry into online gambling Sportsbet proposed several recommendations, including banning ‘above the line’ [untargeted] advertising of promotions … and prohibiting commissions being paid to staff or third parties.
“Any customer who does not wish to be contacted can SMS STOP in response to a text message, change their preferences to unsubscribe from communications in two clicks, or call a customer service agent.”
Sportsbet offered no reply to the ABC’s queries about customer inducements.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland’s office did not respond to the ABC’s request for comment.
‘A tricky question’
Callum is happy to talk about his issues with gambling. The ABC has changed his name to protect his privacy.
He says he realised a year ago he was addicted to gambling, part of an ever-growing trend in Australia.
Alliance for Gambling Reform chief advocate Tim Costello says it’s because “our sports have been handed over to sports-betting interests”.
“We lose the most in gambling of any nation in the world — 40 per cent higher than the nation that comes second, Mr Costello said.
“I often say America’s blind spot is guns — Australia’s blind spot is gambling.
“Our kids are being mainstreamed into gambling and sport, normalised — expecting that gambling and sport, AFL and NRL, go together.
“It’s utter regulatory and policy failure and our kids and young men are the main victims.”
Callum, now 28, admits it’s “a tricky question” trying to work out how much he’s lost.
“Because I’ve won as well. I’ve probably put in like $20,000, but I’ve probably pulled out, you know, $15,000 or so — I’m not that far down,” he says.
“But that’s only because I stopped gambling and had a few [standing] bets that came off.
“I knew I had a problem before [those bets] came off — I was down, you know, $10,000.”
‘Always on’
Marketing researcher Ross Gordon fears sports betting sites are intensifying involvement for their users, creating what’s been described as “a kind of ‘always on’ type of experience”.
For the past four years, Professor Gordon has been lead researcher on an interdisciplinary study — involving QUT, RMIT, Swinburne, UTS and the University of Wollongong — probing the everyday experiences of 51 sports-betting app consumers.
“We’ve got a lot of insight from our participants that they’re betting on the train, they’re betting on the bus, they’re betting at home, they’re betting at the pub [and] they’re betting at work.”
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‘Sucked into that environment’
Gambling first caught Callum’s attention when he was about 10 years old — when he’d play versions of Texas Hold’em embedded inside video games.
He’s also an avid sportsman and this played a factor in his gambling by the time he was in his early 20s.
“I’d like to think I know my basketball and the NBA very, very well, so that’s where I was using that knowledge to gamble — and, you know, to win a lot of money,” he says.
“But there’s this thing when you gamble, you know, you make a big win. And then you go, okay the basketball’s over for the day, but there’s still horses running and there’s still dogs running.
“You get sucked into that other environment of gambling, where there’s just stuff going on all the time.”
‘Terrified of taking on the TV broadcasters’
Roy Morgan research released in June found one in three Australian men aged 25 to 34 are betting on sport, with one in four men aged 18 to 24 doing so regularly.
Mr Costello says the more time passes, the more sceptical he becomes about the federal government enacting the Murphy report’s major recommendations.
“Seven out of 10 Australians want [gambling] ads banned,” Mr Costello said.
He believes both the government and opposition are “terrified of taking on the TV broadcasters in an election year”.
“So much of Seven, Nine and Foxtel’s TV advertising revenue comes from sports betting ads.
“We are still hopeful they will do the right thing, but the longer it goes the more you lose hope that they will ban the ads.”
Mr Costello said his heart sank when he heard the news that former AFL chief executive Gill McLachlan had been appointed CEO of Tabcorp.
Meanwhile, the NRL has gambling at the centre of its expansion plans, after launching the 2024 season in Las Vegas.
Australian Rugby League commissioner Peter Beattie has openly admitted it was all about finding new punters.
“We can’t just stay in one market,” Mr Beattie told the ABC earlier this year.
“If we can get a percentage of the American gambling market, that’s money that goes into our clubs, into our players. There’s no point trying to deny that it is true and, yes, we are interested in getting a percentage of it.”
‘It kind of ruins the game’
Gambling ads regularly promote the idea that betting with friends is an enjoyable part of the Australian sporting experience.
But Callum says gambling had the opposite effect on his appreciation for sport.
“It kind of ruins the game, in my opinion.
“I’m not watching to see who scores points and gets rebounds, I’m seeing how the game’s played and how it should be played.
“Watching my team, I want them to win as a genuine fan and support rather than just because I’ve got money on it.”
The 28-year-old admits he’s kept his Sportsbet account active “because it’s a bit of a reminder for me, like, look how gross it is”.
“They’re just trying to reel me back in and for me, it’s kind of like a step up on them … like I’m winning every time I see that.”
Dr Livingstone says he’s increasingly sceptical that the federal government will impose a phase-out ban on gambling ads.
He says while banning inducements is an easier step, “I’m not holding my breath on any of this at the moment, unfortunately”.
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