Lies, damned lies, and statistics: Did the Australian bankers mislead the online gambling inquiry?
One of the more shocking revelations from the public hearings at the parliamentary inquiry into online gambling was delivered not from social welfare groups, or from the online bookmakers themselves, but from an Australian bankers lobbyist group.
The CEO of the Australian Banking Association (ABA), Anna Bligh, stunned the parliamentary committee and those watching online when she revealed 500,000 Australians had asked their banks to block their gambling expenditure.
The clear implication from the former Queensland Labor Party Premier was that half a million Australians have asked their bank to ban them from gambling.
“Our most recent check in with our members, which was about six months ago, there were collectively across all our existing banks more than half-a-million Australians who have put a self-veto on their own account,” she said.
But do the alarming figures really demonstrate the widespread exposure to gambling harm or adoption of pseudo self-exclusion that the ABA would have us all believe?
Of course they don’t.
What the ABA failed to tell the committee was that many of their member banks, of which the ‘big four’ banks (ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac) are all members, offer users an in-app security setting to restrict gambling payments.
The setting in their banking apps is actually promoted as a useful security setting to stop payments to gambling services should their cards or accounts be compromised.
NAB’s banking app offers a ‘Gambling Transactions’ setting which is easily turned off or on, just like allowing or disallowing overseas purchases or contactless payments.
Even online banking services like Revolut offer a ‘Gambling block’ setting within their apps, despite not being members of the ABA. The setting is easily turned off or on within seconds.
The immediate assumption made from the ABA evidence was that an extraordinary number of Australians had suffered or been subjected to gambling harm and had turned on the setting in their apps to restrict their gambling and essentially self-exclude from gambling.
The reality is that 500,000 Australians, who in the majority very likely do not gamble regularly anyway, had used a readily accessible and easy-to-use security feature to help make their card and their accounts safer from fraudulent use should they become compromised.
The ABA made no attempt to transparently convey that information, nor explain that the use of that setting was encouraged to safeguard cards, nor that the use of the setting did not specifically indicate a person was suffering gambling harm.
The mainstream media were quick to jump on the easy headline without questioning what the underlying numbers really meant.
SBS wrote, “Shocking number of Australians ask banks to prevent them from gambling”, while even the Australian Financial Review fell for the ruse with an article titled, “How the big banks help Australians stop themselves from gambling”.
So the simple mistruth that 500,000 Australians who had suffered some degree of gambling harm have banned themselves from gambling with their banks will be trotted out ad infinitum until it becomes “fact”.
The reality is that it is more of an urban myth.
Data from the ABA that would have been extremely useful to the committee is how many people who had restricted gambling payments in their apps had previously used their cards regularly for gambling, and how many continued to gamble by funding their betting accounts by other means such as POLi or bank transfers.
That opportunity was missed in the search for a headline.
The narrative is being pushed towards a theme that anyone that funds an account with online sports betting sites is automatically suffering gambling harm or gambling with money they don’t have.
Meanwhile, uncontrolled credit card use for other forms of entertainment or online shopping is encouraged, and widely and aggressively advertised across all mainstream media channels and social media.
The national self-exclusion register BetStop is set to be launched in the coming months and it is highly unlikely that the ABA’s 500,000 Australians who have “put a self-veto” on themselves will be lining up to register for it.
But that would not make an attention-grabbing headline, would it?
The phrase ‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’ is historically associated with Mark Twain, who attributed it to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, but has more recently and very appropriately been used for the 1978 book titled ‘Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America’ and the 2001 novel titled ‘Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists’.
The parliamentary committee will wrap up the online gambling public hearings this week and is expected to deliver its recommendations by the middle of the year.
I think you’ve missed the point. If your take out from yesterday was that and no issues with said industry than as they say “that’ll do me” 🤦🏻♂️
The author is definitely making a good point – the people discussing the topics at play here are not being fully transparent.
Not to mention, the fact that most of the politicians who are entrusted with making the laws are not hitting on the right topics.
If we think sports betting is an issue, what about the millions/billions being sent to offshore casinos and poker websites. We need a national body that licenses all these products, to keep it as safe as possible for the consumer. (admittedly i haven’t read all of the transcripts yet).
A good article which reveals the truth.