Communications Minister Anika Wells says she is working to strengthen the media watchdog’s powers to “crack down” on bookmakers who breach Australia’s gambling self-exclusion register. Source: The Australian.
Legislated by the Morrison government and later rolled out by Labor, the register – officially known as BetStop – allows problem gamblers to self-exclude from online and phone wagering services by submitting their details through a digital portal.
Bookmakers must then prevent registered individuals from opening or holding an account, but repeated breaches identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have cast doubt on the scheme’s effectiveness.
In Canberra on Tuesday, Ms Wells said she was “absolutely” concerned that wagering companies were falling foul of their obligations under the BetStop program and flagged she was seeking to bolster compliance with the scheme.
“We are working with ACMA on how we can give them more powers to crack down on this,” she said.
Asked whether the federal Government would extend the scheme into other forms of wagering, such as online keno and retail punting, Ms Wells said Labor “would consider anything that advances the cause of reducing gambling harms online”.
Labor is undertaking a review of BetStop led by former senior bureaucrat Richard Eccles, but it is not slated to hand its finding to Ms Wells until next year.
In its submission to that review, the Alliance for Gambling Reform, an advocacy group that aims to prevent gambling-associated harms, called for the register to be extended to other forms of wagering and for its enforcement mechanisms to be strengthened.
Australia’s biggest online bookmakers are similarly lobbying to eliminate BetStop’s current limit to internet and phone punting, submitting to the review that the register cover all gambling formats to help ensure consistent consumer protections.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Labor ministers have regularly touted the register as evidence that the party has taken action to minimise the harms posed by gambling, amid mounting calls for it to legislate a clampdown on wagering advertising.
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Anika Wells moves to toughen and extend BetStop register to other wagering (By Jack Quail, The Australian)
