Tabcorp’s new lotto division wants lotteries to not be considered gambling

Tabcorp’s lotto, keno and lotteries division, The Lottery Corporation, has requested an exception from the proposed gambling reform laws, with critics quick to say it will allow them to continue to prey on the disadvantaged, uneducated, and the most vulnerable in Australian society.

While all Australian betting sites, online bookmakers, the corporate bookies lobby body, Responsible Wagering Australia (RWA), and nearly every punter has supported moves to ban credit card use for gambling; The Lottery Corporation have made a submission to the Australian Government to be exempt from the proposed laws.

The new laws aim to prohibit people from using credit cards for gambling, but The Lottery Corporation is unhappy that lotto, keno, and lotteries are considered gambling.

The Lottery Corporation made a submission to the Australian Senate, suggesting they should be exempt from the credit card bans due to the perception that lotteries have less potential for harm.

If the Albanese Government were to side with The Lottery Corporation, it would severely water down the changes to the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill, which were meant to protect Australia’s weakest and most exposed.

This would allow customers to continue purchasing scratch cards, lotto, lotteries, and keno tickets using their credit cards, while online betting companies would be prohibited from accepting credit cards.

The end result would successfully disenfranchise scratchies, lotto, lotteries, and keno tickets from Australian gambling, which is insane.

Visitors to casinos and users of poker machines are already prohibited from using credit cards for betting purposes.

The Australian Banking Association (ABA) supports the ban on credit card use for gambling, although their performance in front of the anti-gambling ad inquiry was less than totally honest.

The ABA believes that wagering providers should take responsibility for implementing this ban.

The government is still reviewing the raft of recommendations resulting from the inquiry.

Some of the recommendations include prohibiting inducements across all sectors and gradually phasing out gambling advertisements altogether.

Although many of the changes cannot be implemented directly by the Albanese Government as they cross State Government jurisdictions, they will therefore both require widespread State Government support and extra care not to grossly impact State Government revenues and budgets who rely heavily on wagering and lotteries.

The NSW Government has already issued a caution about the proposed changes, which could further damage a $400 million shortfall in gambling revenue due to ill-considered Point Of Consumption Tax (POCT) increases.

These anti-gambling proposals have sparked outrage among sporting bodies, racing organisations, and media entities, as they seek to reduce the visibility of all three codes of racing, and gambling, to just those who already have an interest; and cutoff vital revenue and advertising dollars from mainstream publications and channels.

But of all the changes put forward by the anti-gambling inquiry, banning credit card use was overwhelmingly supported, but The Lottery Corporation has failed to “read the room” and gone off on a complete tangent, suggesting lotto, scratchies, keno, and lotteries cause little to no gambling harm.

Lauren Levin from Financial Counselling Australia (FCA) disagreed with the perspective in her submission to the Senate.

She argued that lottery products contribute to gambling harm and should receive the same consumer protection regulations as other online gambling forms.

Levin criticised The Lottery Corporation for referring to the lotteries industry as “small businesses” when it generated $3.5 billion in revenue during the 2023 year.

She also highlighted how lottery businesses now operate primarily through platforms using omnichannel marketing strategies.

Levin said that advocates for harm prevention have not paid attention to the harm caused by lotteries and have been neglectful.

Levin argues this is because gambling reform discussions have predominantly focused on online sports betting, despite the fact that poker machines are responsible for the majority of gambling-related harm.

“Amidst all the discussions about gambling, the lottery lobby successfully created an impression that lotteries are harmless,” Levin said.

Levin said, “We were mistaken”, to allow that position to be adopted unchallenged.

RWA says its members are totally in support of the credit card bans: “We agree with the government’s perspective that wagering customers should only use their own funds for betting activities”.

The 2015 Australian Gambling Activity Report found that of an estimated 6.8 million regular Australian gamblers in 2015, lotto and lotteries were the most popular, with 76% participation, or 5.1 million Australian participants.

Scratchies accounted for 22% of gamblers, and keno represented 8% of gamblers.

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