Alcohol and gambling posts: a law for one, an industry code for the other

Gambling: what is banned outright

The ACMA’s page on misleading or socially irresponsible gambling ads is direct: “Ads for prohibited interactive gambling services are banned on TV, radio and online. This includes online casino-style services and online betting services that accept in-play betting on sports events.” Anyone who believes such a service has been advertised in Australia can complain to the ACMA. For anyone worried about their own or someone else’s online gambling, the ACMA recommends Gambling Help Online.

For the content of legal betting ads, the ACMA points to the AANA Wagering Advertising and Marketing Communications Code, with complaints going to Ad Standards, and notes that there are different state and territory rules.

Gambling ads around live sport

The ACMA writes its live sport rules for broadcasters and for providers that stream live sport over the internet, with slightly different rules for each. At all times during play, no gambling ads or promotion of odds are allowed, and between 5.00am and 8.30pm none are allowed from 5 minutes before the scheduled start until 5 minutes after play, breaks included. Both sets of rules have exceptions: neither covers horse, harness or greyhound racing, and the broadcast rules also leave out, among others, ads or promotions for government lotteries, lotto, Keno or contests, and accidental and incidental references to gambling, such as signage or players’ uniforms. For streams, the rules follow the time zone of the viewer in Australia, wherever the event is played.

On content, the ACMA lists four things such ads may not do:

NSW: inducements and penalties

Liquor & Gaming NSW says NSW has some of the toughest gambling advertising restrictions and penalties in Australia. Its centre is the rule on inducements:

The penalties apply to prohibited gambling advertising by betting service providers, broadcasters, commentators or others: a maximum of $110,000 for a corporation and $11,000 for an individual. Liquor & Gaming NSW can also issue penalty notices, and directors and other officers of betting service providers may be held liable. It is also an offence in NSW to publish gambling advertising about a sporting event or fixture in progress there, live odds and in-play betting services included.

Alcohol: a code the industry runs

The ABAC Scheme, set up in 1998, describes itself as a regulator of alcohol and alcohol alternative marketing across Australia. It is paid for entirely by industry, through membership levies, signatory fees and pre-vetting charges, and overseen by a management committee drawing on government, the alcohol industry and the advertising sector. Its Code covers both where marketing is placed and what it says, and the scheme says it reaches past TV, radio, print and outdoor into digital and social media.

ABAC sets out four points at which marketing is judged against its standards:

1. Internal check. Company and agency staff check each piece of marketing, and its media placement, against the Code and its Guidance Notes.
2. Pre-vetting. Staff can apply to have marketing assessed by ABAC’s pre-vetters before it runs.
3. Complaint. Once marketing is out, consumers can complain through Ad Standards, which starts ABAC’s complaints process.
4. Compliance. If the ABAC Panel finds the marketing falls short of the standards, the marketer is asked to withdraw or modify it.

The scheme itself notes that judging whether an ad complies with codes like this will always involve a subjective view.

Alcohol: the laws beside the code

ABAC says it is not the only set of rules. Its own list of what alcohol marketing must also meet includes the federal Competition and Consumer Act and state fair trading laws, state and territory liquor licensing rules on promotion, and the Food Standards Code. Two states’ liquor pages show what those rules look like:

• NSW. Liquor & Gaming NSW’s guideline GL4001 sets principles for running liquor promotions responsibly, and “They aim to minimize harm by ensuring promotions do not encourage irresponsible drinking, appeal to minors, or go against community standards.”
• Western Australia. Licensees must make sure any promotion or advertising for the sale and consumption of alcohol is run responsibly. If the Director of Liquor Licensing finds a promotion or ad irresponsible, licence conditions can follow, and the Director can also suspend a licence in the public interest or begin disciplinary action.

On ABAC’s own account, then, alcohol marketing answers to its Code and to state liquor rules at the same time. Two other tabs cover industries whose advertising rules are set by law: the property guide and the health practitioners guide.