Could credit card betting become a thing of the past?

LOOK, it’s probably not going to happen, but here is an idea that could shake the gambling industry to its very core.

Some of the biggest operators of super funds in Australia have called on the banks to stop allowing people to use their credit cards to gamble with.

Yes, that’s right.

So worried are some of these superfund operators about the burgeoning growth in online gambling, they want the banks to help reign it in.

The Responsible Investment Association of Australia – which is the peak body for a group of member funds that manages a lazy $1 trillion in assets – has sent a letter to the big four banks, concerned about the prevalence of online gambling.

That’s right, $1 trillion. The banks are sure to at least listen when a power player like that gets involved.

And another of the big fund managers, AMP Capital – managing assets in the $160 billion range – has also contacted the banks over the same issue.

It’s a big push from an industry that would be a providing a hefty chunk to the banks.

The RIAA Tweeted last week that it considers online gambling an ethical, environmental, social and governance investment risk.

Its chief executive Simon O’Connor told the Financial Review that the group had received a “positive” response from the banks.

He says mainstream investors can see the social harm caused by problem gambling online.

It might not be in the league of the big guns, but the $1 billion UCA Funds Management group has also weighed in, its chair Michael Walsh questioning the banks over whether they felt it was ethical to offer credit on people’s punting.

“Providing people with credit to gamble does not fit within a responsible lending ethos. We are concerned that this will cause financial risk and reputational damage to the bank as more case studies emerge of banks facilitating problem gamblers getting more deeply into financial difficulty,“ he wrote in a letter to Bank Australia.

If the big banks to do follow through, they won’t be breaking new ground.

Citibank and Bank of Queensland are reportedly among a small number of financial institutions which no longer allow credit cards to be used for the purpose of gambling transactions.

What would a credit card ban look like for punters?

We’re not sure exactly how they think it’s going to work, because crafty punters will find ways around it.

My first thought was that’s ok, I can charge up my PayPal account using my credit card and then direct the fund from my PayPal account directly into my betting account.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that, but i guess it takes away from the convenience of being able to just punch your credit card details in and then bang, you are betting.

Even worse, punters might withdraw finds from their credit cards into their bank accounts and use systems like Poli to turn them into gambling funds.

That opens another can of worms, because it exposes out most vulnerable – already struggling financially – to higher and immediate interest rates they may not have faced had they used the credit card as a direct transaction.

Meanwhile, gambling researchers are concerned that underage children were exposed to large amounts of online betting marketing throughout the Australian Open tennis tournament, because it is held over the school holidays.

The Age reports several senior members of Parliament were left privately fuming over the revelation that for every 14 hours of tennis coverage being broadcast, there was four minutes of ads involving WilliamHill.

They are reportedly concerned at the saturation of gambling advertising in sport and fear the impact it is having on children.

Much of it was targeted around the bookie’s chase the ace promotion, which offered punters a set amount for every ace the player they bet on hit during their game, regardless of whether or not the player won or lost.

Gambling advertising is banned during G-rated programs, but there is an exemption for sports broadcasts.

It’s understood the government has no plans to alter that code.

And the age-old battle between gambling researchers and poker machines continues to simmer, with those in New South Wales calling for more probing of the impact the $5.7 billion gamblers in the state lost on them in the past year has on them.

University of Sydney Gambling Treatment Clinic spokeswoman Sally Gainsbury wants governments across Australia to dig deeper, according to the ABC.

“We need to look at this in terms of how much of this was discretionary entertainment spending and how much of this was money that really should have gone to other more important life purposes,” Dr Gainsbury said.

“What governments need to do, rather than just counting dollars and doing prevalence studies, is to start looking at harms, and not just people who put their hand up and say that they’re a problem gambler, because we know that most people are unlikely to do that.

“We need to start looking at harms in the community.”

And, while the New South Wales government says it will undertake a study into the prevalence of problem gambling, Monash University gambling researcher Charles Livingstone called on it to also make it easier to access statistics.

“You have to pay literally thousands of dollars to get hold of these data sets and secondly they don’t identify which venues are involved in these calculations,” Dr Livingstone said.

“In Victoria, the data are provided on a month-to-month basis and they list the amounts lost at each venue, so you know exactly where the money is coming from.

“So, there’s a lack of transparency in New South Wales … and about half of Australia’s 200,000 poker machines are in New South Wales.”