Welcome to Ruined by the Internet.

I'm Gareth King.

Today we're asking has the Internet ruined gambling?

It promised to modernise an age old activity bringing new convenience to a quick thrill.

Instead, it's delivered a predatory 24/7 addiction machine that exploits our psychology with algorithms leading to what many consider a serious public health crisis.

To help us understand what's really at stake, we're joined by Mark Kempster, A gambling reform advocate and member of Australia's Alliance for Gambling Reforms Voices of Lived Experience programme.

Mark, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.

Not anytime.

Glad to be on.

Before we get into it today, can you just tell us a bit about the work that you do and the journey that's LED you to this point?

Yeah, certainly.

So all my young adult life and it's my 20s, I developed, I had a gambling addiction and it went through at least 10 years of my life, probably a little bit more when I, when I really think about it.

But yeah, so I, I battled that for a really long time, had huge effect on my life and to this day still affects me to, to an extent.

But yeah, I managed to get get past it.

Now I'll be 6 years without a bet tomorrow.

So the time to come along, which is kind of an anniversary for me.

So but yeah, now, now I work for work alongside the alliance of gambling reformers with the experience advocates.

So I really try to push for reforms and and trying to help as many people as I can to not go down the path.

So I did and try and make it safer for people to to enjoy a bit without developing an an addiction.

Yeah, brilliant.

I mean, look, I'm sure everybody that's been awake for the last decade or so, it's just seeing how much gambling and normalisation of it has permeated everything.

We're gonna talk about how all of that's happened today, but we are also going to be talking about how the Internet and tech has transformed gambling to to the beast that it is today.

Looking back, what has surprised you the most at how the impact of the Internet and technology has played out in the gambling space so far?

Oh it changed my life.

Like I was been from someone who enjoyed a bet on a weekend after I played footy when you had to physically go and have a bet at the pub or at the local TAB to to someone who without the Internet wouldn't have been able to do like would have probably still been OK doing that for most of the time.

But once we developed sports bet apps and and gambling apps in Australia, it's had a huge effect on the way we gamble in Australia.

It's had a huge effect on the mental health of people in Australia and it's had a huge effect on communities in general with the amount of other things that come out of addictions that have been caused by our move to to gamble online and have it in our pockets every day of the week.

It is an issue that we have been hearing about.

It's feels like forever within Australia.

I can't even recall how long I've been hearing stories of people that would get their pay and just like put it straight into the pokies.

And we've known that they've been this crazy problem and it feels like there's constantly talk of some kind of reform and, and it never happens.

And we know that pokies provide so much revenue to the venues that they're in, those you have to actually go and physically enter the space to sit down and do it.

Now, as as we all know through the rise of smartphones and the and the Internet like this access that now we have is constantly in your pocket 24/7.

And we all know people react the way they react to their phone.

They're constantly checking it, constantly get a notification, see what's going on if if someone's a heroin addict, like the worst thing in the world, people see as the dealer trying to push heroin on a heroin addict.

But it feels like gambling.

It's that is so normal and there's so many platforms out there, like I'm losing count of how many I see popping up.

You can't turn on the TV without seeing marketing and advertising for gaming, let alone any kind of sporting event, which feels like it's just become so ingrained within the experience of sport itself.

But when it does come to those phone based gambling apps, can you explain to us how the design of those makes them just so addictive for users?

Well.

They're, they're designed to, to keep you betting as long as possible.

And, and I know for a fact that the, the companies use psychologists to make sure that you are in the app as long as possible, like where they don't tell you how there's no time.

You can't see the time on the apps.

So I don't know how long we've been in there.

Like with the pokie machine they have, they make it very easy to deposit money, but make it very hard to withdraw money on the apps.

They give you bonus bets, They give you inducements to continue to bet for as long as possible.

And they always ask you the questions like, what can we do to help help you with your betting?

They want to make it a community.

They want to have this huge bet with mates idea that, which is really a toxic thing that to put out into the world that you'll enjoy your activity or your sport or whatever you're watching more if you're betting on it with your mates.

So they they they make it, they're trying to make the community of people to normalise it across Australia and they've done a really good job with it.

You said like what we see it everywhere.

We we can't get away from it.

I feel like I probably noticed it more than the normal person in Australia.

But even you saying that you notice so much Gareth.

It's it's just that like if that that they have intrinsically tried to link betting with sport or betting with anything really.

Like you can bet on Master Chef, you can bet on the stocks are going to go up and down.

You can bet on interest rates going up and down things along these lines.

So they've made it part of everyday life and trying to normalise it and make their their apps is easy to use and it's as easy as possible to try and keep you there longer.

Is is their whole goal with what they're trying to do at the moment?

Yeah, look, and and that's, that's wholly unsurprising, especially as we know that the way that all these social media apps, whatever are built for that to get people in and use them as long as possible.

I think for me, the distinction between say, I don't know, someone that claims to be just addicted to TikTok, you know what I mean?

Like they're they're wasting time consuming whatever videos they're in, content they're looking at.

But it doesn't have that financial implication, which to me is the really insidious thing about the way that these gambling apps have developed.

You know, that's interesting to hear as well.

They make it really difficult to take the money out.

And it makes me think back to, you know, those shady films you've watched, like Vegas casinos, you know what I mean?

Like someone wins big and rather than letting you cash out the computer room and all of this other stuff.

So hopefully exactly.

Yeah, win it back.

But I think that if if someone does have that addiction, whether it's an addiction or just a compulsion to be on the phone just in general, and then that opportunity is there.

It's just frictionless.

Just so easy for them to just keep going and going and going.

Obviously that type of personality has always been there.

Do you think that it's a case that this online and and app based betting targets those people simply because the the barriers to reaching them are largely removed?

Or do you think that these apps are potentially creating more of those people simply by the nature of the way that we interact with our phones and technology in general?

So they use that kind of side door to to bring.

In the, I think, yeah, I, I think it's, it's creating more of them.

I think there's always, as you said, there's always been people with personalities like that.

But I think the way they have set the industry up now and the way they deliberately target specific demographics of people who will.

But basically their whole, their whole goal is to try and target 8 into 34 year olds in the community, whether it's a lot, mainly males, but they do target females as well these days with it because they're, they're targeting people whose brains are still developing at the time.

And they, they, they want to intrinsically link gambling with community basically, and, and, and make it look like they're the good guys and they're just there to offer you some, some, some good times with your mates.

So I think it's creating more people like that with the way they've set things up and in particular with, with inducement, say offer like the bonus bets and, and deposit matches and, or the, the thousands of things that I've seen now that other people have shown me now I'm helping people recover.

Like it's actually quite criminal some of the stuff these guys are offering to try and take your betting longer.

It's it's really nasty stuff the way they kind of hook you onto the loop with it.

Yeah, like as you said this, there was definitely some of it to start with, but yeah, it it's getting out of hand at the moment.

Yeah, look, that's again completely unsurprising.

At the end of the day, it is a business trying to extract as much money as it can out of people.

Except this time it's it's feels just incredibly predatory.

But what are some of those tactics that you just alluded to that the platforms kind of whether they use it to target new users, build a relationship with current users, or even just, you know, maintain that user engagement.

You said a couple of things there about offering different sorts of bets or maybe special access or something.

Like what?

What are some of the examples that they do?

Oh, look, they, they offer tickets to to football matches, they offer tickets to the grand finals, to the Australian Open, to the State of Origin, to the Spring carnival in RKS that they have specific VIP customer relations, people who pretend to be your friends, basically who will call you and they will they'll chat to you and ask you, hey, what are you going to be on today?

Yeah.

And I liked it that top of it too.

And they, they ask you how your your family's going and they ask you like how your dog's going, things along these lines, like they want to pretend to be your friend.

And this really insidious behaviour of trying to build a relationship with someone when all these VIP, the VIP customer relations people all work on Commission as well.

So they're like, I can have someone there trying to get you to bet more, not really care about how much you are betting because they're going to make more money off you if you do a bit more.

That type of relationship is, is so toxic.

But we've built an industry in Australia where it's allowed because we don't have enough regulation in place to stop it.

I had one person in particular I worked with who was offered for 50% of his losses back if he kept betting with them every Saturday.

So because they want him to bet more and more and more, but they would offer him.

Yeah, the as long as you bet so much on a Saturday, we'll give half of it back to you when bonus bets.

And you can bet the next day with that as well.

Like just things like that, to keep you in their circle, to keep, to make you feel like you're such a special person when the whole goal is to try and slicing as much money out of your pocket as possible.

Yeah, even even the way you've explained it there as a bonus bit like, you know, psychologically I can imagine it's like, oh, real.

Money like it's not real money.

No, Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm potentially only losing half as much.

It's OK.

It's only half as bad.

And then like you said, it's not even real money.

Like you'll just lose it again the next day.

So it's just like, you know, psychologically it makes so much sense for them to offer it like that rather than just kind of a cash back.

But it just seems again, you're there the next day and you might be like, I again, I don't know what, what kind of amounts that this stuff represents.

But let's say you've got now 500 bucks left the next day, you're like, oh, well, I didn't lose that 500 yesterday.

You'll potentially lose that and more the next day.

And, and you, you mentioned something a couple of minutes ago as well around the target, I guess the target audience or group priority being those 18 to 34 year olds.

When I've been looking into this as well, looking at some of the, the findings, it's actually quite shocking to me the stats, especially around that 18 to 34 year old age group.

It was in the the AMU report, I think it was that I found it says that while, you know, for regular online gambling, 68% of of users are considered at risk.

But in that age group that you mentioned 18 to 34, that jumps to 82%.

Now I'm assuming that that's because you said that the brain is, is is not as developed to that kind of impulse control stuff.

But we're into like a A+ territory if this was a a School Report arcing as to how dangerous this is for 18 to 34 year old.

You mentioned, you know, the regulations just kind of can't or won't do anything about it.

Like how is this happening for so long?

I can, I've got a lot of thoughts on that, but I probably can't say a lot of because so don't start swearing on your podcast.

But like it's, but the amount of LAX regulation that is in place in this country is due to a few things.

Like we have a government that's beholden to the industry and it's being proven now really that they don't want to do anything about it because it's an easy tax revenue for them to bring in.

Unfortunately, we have the Labor Party in Australia, federal levels, who are the only Western civilised democracy party who are in poking machines and make revenue money off them.

So like we have a really a really strong sporting industry in Australia that have a lot of power with the AFL and the NRL who wield their power behind the scenes on an incredibly large basis.

They the amount of times that I've tried to speak with people in thamber and can't get meetings with people to try and talk about regulations and the damage it's doing to people.

Because the AFL, NRL having meetings with people and they're trying to push their agendas at their end.

Because I don't want to lose the gambling advertising revenue like we that there are so many offshoots of the reason why and we have quasi national regulator in the NT who all our gambling companies to Australia will 95% of them are regulated and licenced out of the NT because of the tax offsets they get up there and we'd have an industry up there which acts with no regulation at all up we the four Corners report that was out two weeks ago that Steve can I get on the ABC, which is fantastic just really showed that up that they have the national NT Racing Commission don't even have any full time staff and they're supposed to be the national regulator of a $50 billion industry in Australia.

And we wonder why leaving their companies keep popping up and doing whatever they want to do at the moment because they know they could go and move their bases up there and and act like Cowboys pretty much with no type of punishments.

They get absolute lettuce leaf punishments like on the wrist type of stuff when they do do something wrong.

So there's five things for you.

There's probably a lot more of it as well, but like it's there's so many offshoots of it that we have problems with in this country.

That is crazy.

I didn't know that about the NT.

And to hear there, as you said, it's a $50 billion industry with no full time staffing in the regulation body.

Like I'm kind of chuckling about it now when you're laughing.

UK, sorry yeah yeah, like the the UK have 500 full time staff for their gambling industry and we have none.

We have what's?

The size of the UK.

We work gambling industry compared to ours.

On a actual monetary stance, it's bigger, but we buy like not even close per capita, the biggest gambling industry and the biggest losses for any country in the world per capita with no one even comes close to the amount of money we lose in Australia on gambling.

So to have A, to have a national regulator that can't even have full time staff that's based in the back office in the Northern Territory, it just beggars my life.

And so is, is that national regulator an an arm of the government like, or is it an independent thing like how, how does that relationship work?

It's an arm of the NT government, so they are, they are in charge of it.

They've never been officially given the title of a national regulator, but given that the amount of gambling companies that are based in the NT like to insist that basically about 95% of all the companies in Australia are based, have put their operations in because of the tax offsets.

Like, yeah, they are pretty much the national regulator at the moment.

In that sense for a whole industry, we we don't have a national regulator.

The federal government's never put anything in place to have a national regulator in place.

It's one of the key recommendations of Peter Murphy's report that unfortunately he's still sitting on the government's desk at the moment.

And outside of the ban of gambling advertising, she wanted to to introduce that was the second main point of it, that we can't have an industry that's worth $50 billion that doesn't have any independent oversight to it.

That just seems insane to me.

That's the first time I'd, I'd.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

I heard that's that and and you know, I'm not even in that world and that just seems crazy.

What what do you think the stalling and the delay is all about?

I mean, obviously you said there's vested interest, but I mean, I can just imagine that an industry that size the the lobby is just so powerful.

And as you said, if they're the ones getting the access, then what hope do normal people having problems with these have?

But has there been any positive movement with regulation as more and more information and statistics and data comes out about, you know, the damage that these gambling apps are doing?

Not, not really.

The last few years the, the main two things like that, the, the federal government introduced this bet stop, which has been OK, like so bet stop is a national self exclusion register, which we didn't have up until two years ago.

So you're actually allowed to, you can put your name in on that.

It's supposed to block companies from contacting you and, and letting you sign up to any type of gambling company in Australia.

Unfortunately, there's still plenty of cases where companies are getting around the bet stop laws.

There's just one this week which David Poker brought up and sent it estimates around a company in Queensland who they said, oh, they sent a letter out through all their self excluded customers and said we know you're self excluded.

We just want to let you know that we're here if you ever want to do punt again, you can come back with a new account to us.

So they're not actually offering gambling services that the how hard that is for someone like myself to get an email like that.

Even if you are self excluded, it makes you question what you're doing.

It possibly makes you go in bed again because you've got so many doubts in your head.

I've got so many people that I've helped over the last six years who have fallen back into their addictions because of the contact they get from companies when they shouldn't have.

It is ridiculous.

There is so many instances of these sort of cases that the, the, the national requires a national regulator in the NT have dealt with where they get 10,012 thousand dollar fines.

When I know for a fact some people have taken their lives because of the, the contact they've had.

And they feel like they're, they're never going to be able to get away from it.

They've done all the right things that they can't put themselves on in more self exclusion registers.

And they're still getting phone calls every week or they're getting emails every second week telling them to bed again.

It's like, it is so bad.

Like I Yeah.

Yeah.

How do, how do they get around?

Like we know that companies can buy email lists and databases.

Is it simply a case of that or is it they don't care?

As you said, the slap on the wrist is just so miniscule compared to what's potentially theirs.

Yeah, I think that's the case.

Like I even, I, I still get them to this day.

I got 120 minutes before I come on the chat with you.

Yeah, if I got an email, an email from a company offering me horse tipping services for the spring carnival, like I think 1, because I had a history of gambling heavily and I had a history of going to all these different gambling websites in Australia.

Your email gets out there as we know how the Internet works, that the email list gets sold off to different companies.

And there's also a lot of people in the gambit industry who don't really care about the penalties that there is.

So they, they will go from one company to another, type the books with them from one company, start up a new company and then they know they'll only get a slap on the wrist if they do it the first time.

They know they get a slap on the wrist.

They do it the second time.

So they're not that they're not really scared about doing this to people.

And the, the money they make off people is I said, like I said, they they can get a $10,000 fine, but they can make that money back in half an hour off someone of one person, let alone the 500 and 400 other people to send it to.

So that they don't, but that there's no, there's no nothing in place to stop.

I'm really doing that.

At the moment, so that just so I'm clear, that $10,000 fine is at once not times 500.

No, just once.

Yeah.

So like there was a case with sports bet last year.

This is a bigger on the bigger terms of things.

They emailed 746 people I think it was on spring carnival week and they blamed him an error of it which I doubt that they they went to all their a lot of their self exploited customers.

A lot of those people complained and they got fines, 50 odd $1000.

We even know that like the amount of money they could, they would have probably made off those emails going out would have been 10 times that the end of that week.

So the the the fines that they are just, they don't, they don't put anyone off.

So they know they make the money back.

Yeah, just that that we've just just touched on there is is almost another side that the Internet and tech is enabling, which is the selling off of those mailing lists and and databases, you know, rather than just these addictive apps and contact to people who are meant to be on self exclusion.

It seems like we.

With with enough money and access, you could mine almost anything about anybody and then use that to target them, you know, for this exact sort of stuff.

But beyond mailing lists that they shouldn't be using, what are some of the other ways that these companies use through data to to go after people now, whether they've got a history of gambling or is do they go after people that don't but they realise they might be susceptible to it?

I think, I think they target anyone who's got a some type of inkling that they might like sport, they might like a popular culture event that's going to have a market up.

So I know and I've and like I've spent days trying to go through my Instagram or what, what Snapchat or whatever I'm on and trying to change my ad preferences to stop getting gambling edge, which I'll give it up on now.

I, I'm, I just, I have to just put up with it now, which is horrible, but I can't get away from it.

But I know there's like when I tried to block one of the gambling ads, I went right through the whole process, the app references and it was because they said you were getting this ad because you looked up football, you looked up men's clothing and you looked up music so that it wasn't even to do.

And I, I love my music.

I I think I'm quite a fashionable person.

I'd like to dress up like I'm looking at things like that all the time.

So like it's to to have those like that type of thing in place for the morning data just for that, because you might have the off chance that, oh, there's a football game this weekend.

We're going to send it out to everyone who saw watched a football video last week.

Doesn't matter if you like it or not or Australian idols.

That's an I'll reference.

But you know, I just got a a final on this weekend.

But these people watch, watch the videos for that.

So we'll send them off the the idea that your betting market on this this weekend you can bet on and try and get get you get you that way.

So they're not just targeting people who like horse racing or or poking machines, They're targeting any amount of that demographic who might have an inkling they might want to bet on something.

And and that is also one of the, I guess the polar opposites of this issue.

Like I think everybody immediately can associate betting with sport.

Now it's it's just kind of hand in hand.

You put on any sport on TV or even you go to the event, like everything is just bet, bet, bet.

I've used these apps a couple of times.

I've put on a few bets in my life.

I'm hopeless.

I never win.

But, you know, I'm lucky enough that I kind of just give myself that little bit of money and go, OK, if, if I win, cool.

If I don't, you know, my, my thing is I play Powerball, you know, every now and again just to, because I dream, yeah, if I win.

But that, that doesn't really send me anything.

I play.

And they're like, hey, tonight's jackpot might be, I don't know, 50 million.

And I'll be like, OK, whatever.

And I think you're playing that and you know, you're not going to win.

Someone obviously wins, but you're exactly like to, but with the sports betting and you know, putting on Maltese and things like that.

I've known people who've had an issue with gambling through online gambling in the past and and phones.

I can see from speaking to them that there is almost a little bit of skill when they talk about and that feels like you're like this really smart person that actually knows stuff.

So it's not pure luck.

There's actually some skill there and I could see that winning something like that could I guess verify and confirm that you are a bit more intelligent.

But recently it feels like no matter who you speak to, whether it's them directly or they'll know of someone who knows someone that's had a problem with with these platforms.

How are we going with trying to get a handle on this stuff?

Or do you think that it's kind of almost a bit of an unstoppable train at this point that is just steam rolling over everything due to influence and I guess money itself?

We're going OK, like we are getting somewhere.

Like I think the noise that the alliance where our workers are making, people like David Perry Cock and Kate Cheney and and Monique Ryan in Parliament are making a lot of noise about her, especially David Perry Cock has been utterly fantastic in the last World 18 months.

And at all.

We have some really good journalists in Australia who are reporting on it quite regularly, some really good people at the Guardian and and Crocky, Danny and Crocky and Josh and Henry the Guardian who do a little work on it.

So what we, we are, there is a groundswell of it.

We, we know there is, we do a lot of surveying at the alliance that shows like the more than 3/4 of Australia, Montgomery that's banned.

It's, it's, it's like nobody likes them.

Nobody, nobody wants to see when they're watching sport.

Nobody wants to explain to their kid what a multi is when they're six or seven years old just because you're watching 40 with your dad on the couch on a Saturday.

Like we, we, we're the first generation of, of Australians who have to explain to our kids what gambling is and what a multi is and why it's a good thing or why it's a bad thing.

Like nothing's going to happen until we get some actual action on the Peter Murphy's inquiry and the report she put down.

That is the absolute catalyst for change.

And the government know that that is.

And they're trying to delay it as much as possible because of the best interest we've talked about.

I think we'll get somewhere.

It's just extremely slow going, but there's too much grounds for all of support to have it had, especially advertising removed.

And we're not talking about this stuff.

I don't ever want to come across like I'm being a prohibitionist or other.

There is a place for gambling in Australia.

I, I don't want to being gambling and it's not about being gambling and it's not about being the people who enjoy it.

And there's a lot of people who go to the pub on this Saturday with their mates or sit on the couch at home and can enjoy, enjoy it safely basically.

So it's not about that.

It's about making it safer.

And at the moment it's the same as the cigarettes were in the 70s and 80s.

It's advertised to a point where it's not safe and we need to actually do something about it before we get to a point where we lose a whole generation of people to gambling.

Totally agree.

I think that outright prohibition probably isn't the right right way to go about it, but I think for me the issue is just the pervasiveness of it.

And I'm sure you can download every single app onto your phone and, and have all of those things reaching out to you.

Hey, do you want to put a bit on here, a bit on here?

You know, I was reading something recently about the number of of teenagers not even 18 years old gambling on on the way to school, which seems like I hear it is at the state 30% of 12 to 17 year olds.

There's more there's more people there's more people under 18 in Australia betting then there is actually actually playing basketball at that age in Australia playing soccer at that age in Australia.

So we're bringing up a generation of gambling addicts at the moment is horrible and I and I see it like I I help out at at all skip with my son sometimes when he goes down there and there's kids down there seminar 8 years old and we're talking about Collingwood are $1.80 favourites on the weekend to their dads not knowing.

But Oh my God, the gambling companies have done so well with their advertising that this is the way they see sport and they they go onto the app and they see the odds are right there before they see the score like it's they can't get away from it.

And this is the why it is so dangerous and why the Internet has played such a big role in this because our younger generations live on the Internet now and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing or not, they see it so much.

We have never been at a point in this country where it's been so pervasive and faces disease.

That that's just shocking, just hearing you say that you've got kids like under 10 talking about the odds of a win for a team.

I know when I was that age, I knew of gambling as this kind of abstract concept, but it's like I, I didn't know what odds were.

I knew you went to a casino and you can win money.

That's, that's the extent of it.

But I'm sure that that's kind of a normal amount of information.

But yeah, as you said, kids that young through access to the Internet and technology and whether it's their own devices or, you know, on their parents, just kind of seeing guest bedding is what you do in any sporting event as so normal.

It just feels like we're really, really going to have a huge, even bigger problem coming down the pipeline.

But you know, that stat you said as well about more, more of these teens.

Again, I'm laughing.

I just I'm just in awe of how awful is one of these teens are gambling.

But.

God, look, one of the other things that you've you've kind of got me thinking about now was in play betting.

That to me just seems so crazy that you are even more caught up in the moment that you could just be smashing buttons because you're so emotionally invested.

You know, like your team might be losing.

You're desperate for a goal, perhaps for your team to win, but now you you're financially invested in that goal.

Why would you say that that in play betting itself has become so massive and what are the outcomes that are happening because of it?

I think you're right in what you're saying that it's the, it's the, the emotional state you're in when you're watching something and you have an investment in it.

So I, I think it's become so popular because you can get it on so quickly.

You can, you can kind of watch the trends of a game, But you know, I had a lot of issues with that when I was gambling is I, I probably thought I knew sport better than what other people did and I thought I'd had an advantage in that way.

I didn't like it.

It was never that, never the case, but the way my brain worked at the time with the dopamine stacks that my brain was chasing and that it just turned me into a, a zombie with a mush for a brain really when I was jamming.

So the way it's set up, you can just get a bet on within 20 seconds and you, you don't even know what you're doing half the time because of what you're watching and you think you're smarter than someone else.

So it plays on the, the urge mechanism in your body when you have an urge to do something.

And I've learned this from, from my recovery now and, and the way I used to bet, it takes a good 10 minutes for an urge to go away.

So to have in play access to betting and have people allowed who can have it in their pockets, you can bet on it to win, you bet on something to lose.

You bet on the goals, you bet on the tackle, you bet on whatever it is implied when you have the urge to do that unless you have you can have change your brain properly to not give in to that urge.

You can lose money so quickly and that's why it's so dangerous.

You can put on 10 bets in that in the amount of time lose $1000 or something.

You know before you even your brain has really kind of even registered what you are doing in that state.

But when you are betting and you're in an emotional state or you with your mate and they're all doing it, or you're drinking alcohol or you're on something else at the time and you've got an urge to go and do something, then you're not going to be able to control that at all.

And and the gamer companies really play on that.

That's why in play betting has become so popular, especially with the way you can also bet on things to lose, like in what with horse riding, be on something to lose halfway around the tracking.

I don't have to even bet for the race starts.

It's it's, it's crazy the amount of things you can bet on in playing air.

Yeah.

And, and it seems to me that that that is something that can really only be facilitated if you've got the access to doing it right in the palm of your hand at any time.

So you don't have to travel and go and find the bookie or, I don't know, go to the the tab or any of that to do it.

Like it really does rely on on that technology being on your person all the time.

But I think one of the other things that I'm trying to to understand, like the real picture around is how much of this normalisation of gambling being a part of every event.

Like if you if you can bet on everything, then you can bet on nothing.

You know what I mean?

It's just kind of become part of the experience.

Do you think that that normalisation is just straight up making it harder for us as, as an Australian society?

And I'm sure you know the same issues happen happening in other countries.

Is it just harder for us to acknowledge the extent of the problem because it is so normalised?

I, I think it's, it's become so normalised.

I mean, we, we have grown up in Australia with a love of betting.

I think like we, it, it's been in our nature, it's been in our culture for a very, very long time to, to bet.

And up until the mid 2000s it was safer to do that like it was, it was probably harder to get a bet on.

You had to physically, it was destination betting for a lot of people.

You had to physically go somewhere to bet.

And that's what it is around the world.

You don't, you see a lot of countries around the world, especially America up until recently, places in Europe where you don't have access to somebody again, unless it's actually at a cassette, you know, she's got to get there.

So I, I think we've been brought up in, in cultures like that in Australia.

And that's what's kind of exasperated when it did blow up with the internets and and the gambling apps it it took us to this other place where it was just so easy to do.

It's just so crazy to me that the worst thing a player can do is bet on the matches.

But you can have platforms funding the leagues behind the matches, you know, the venues.

So maybe it's potentially teams as well.

Like it seems like just the conflict of interest is just so blatant.

It's it just seems a little bit too on the nose that you couldn't make it up.

But we don't have to because it's it's just like that.

Is this exclusive in Australian?

Yeah, they've done really well to intrinsically link a lot.

We, we, we have the, the big sporting codes in Australia make so much money off gambling.

So they're never, ever going to want to stop what's in place now and then this is going to be the really hard thing to try and make any change with it is that the fact that they make like, I think $230 million a year roughly across all the companies in Australia, sporting codes in Australia make off gambling revenue.

So like it's going to, it's going to be something that's very hard to replace.

And it's, and it's the, it's the other factors as well.

And what they argue is they're going to lose all their advertising revenue they make offered as well.

So they can't sell their rights for as much because, you know, the companies won't have the, they can't advertise if we take the laws away from.

So why it is why they, the sporting codes and the lobbies have so much power because there is so much money behind it.

And and they, they, they, they use scare tactics around like, oh, we're going to take away community football whether we had of funded if we can't have gambling advertised.

And it was the same scare tactic that the cigarette industry used in the 70s and 80s that this guy was going to fall in when we knew never did.

Yeah, look, the cigarette one is is so interesting.

I can remember seeing, you know, like these photos of cricketers, you know, like Shane Warne having a ciggy.

Like what's that golf guy John Daly having a ciggy?

And it's like everybody smoked and cigarette advertising daily where and now it's like we're in the year 2025.

There's probably not a human alive that doesn't know how bad cigarettes are.

But you know, if you, if you're really into the darts, like you're just going to keep smoking darts.

And I'm sure it's the same with with all of this stuff.

One thing I did want to want to speak to you about was with these apps being in your pocket, The other thing that's always in your pocket is obviously access to your bank.

Now, Once Upon a time, you would have to go to the ATM, get cash out.

You could have your daily limit put it into the pokies or onto the casino table, whatever it is.

But now you've got banking apps that you can transfer thousands of dollars everyday.

And I'm I'm sure you can change that to make it less, but they're in the same place as the betting app.

So if you lose, you can get more straight away.

Like again, this is just another facilitation of technology that allows this to be so much worse.

What role do you think that banking and even payment systems have to play in this?

And do they play a role?

Play future role like I again, when I've gone through my recovery now and kind of learnt why I probably fell into my gambling as much as I did is because of the ease of access I had to money as well at the time with it, with the with banking apps on my phone.

And when I started to recover, I, I had to give part of my recovery plan was to give my access to my bank accounts over to my partner who, who looks after money to this day, because I was addicted to gambling.

But I was, I was addicted to the having the money and, and using the money as well, I suppose.

And thinking there was my money, I could do it whatever I want with it.

And that became really again, intrinsically linked between the two of them.

That I, that I, if I had extra money and I had access to the money, then I would, I would gamble it as no, no different to someone who is addicted to, to alcohol.

If I had wine in the fridge or beer in the fridge, it didn't matter how many other great mechanisms you put in place around it.

If it was there and had access to it, you're probably going to drink it.

And that's just the way I had explained work.

So that there is a huge correlation between it.

I bet lot on credit cards as well.

And that, that is what I didn't mention before is I have banned, well, they are in the process of banning credit card usage on, on gambling ads, But that wasn't the case up until 12 months ago.

You could gamble on your credit card as much as you wanted to.

And that was something that I struggled with.

Like I would pay a credit card off and then use that credit card to get to gamble again with basically.

So I was just, you know, in a cycle of it, then I would get another credit card or something along those lines.

So we ended up with a couple of credit cards just solely that I used to gamble with never told anyone about it.

So, and having to lie about that type of stuff and lying about your money and where your money in your bank was with this just major mental health, 10 times worse as well when you're trying to deal with something like an addiction.

So that they, they have.

And yeah, like it, it's there's so many offshoots of that you could talk about with it.

And again, the way it's how easy it is to link your bedding account to your, to your debit card to your savings account, depositing this straight away.

And, but like they don't, they never ask you about your deposits.

I always ask you about your withdrawals, how much you want to take out and whether you want to do this.

And, and you can still, and you can cancel withdrawal.

You can't cancel a deposit.

Once it's in there they go.

No, you deposit it.

You need to bet it now before you get this out.

Like many times I'd win money on a Saturday and maybe win daily fairly well on a Saturday and then withdraw it.

And they would leave the withdrawal there for a day or two days before they process it.

Or even on a Tuesday or Wednesday, leave it there and give you an option to cancel your withdrawal.

But I would never do that with with my deposit into your account.

So the stream of money you have going into an app just because it's linked to your bank account is.

Yeah.

Again, it's had a huge effect on the way people gamble.

That, that again makes total sense that they they'd like to take your money, but they don't give it back in any form.

But you said something about kind of hiding what was going on.

And I guess that leads me to another thought that the Internet and technology enables in that sense is you don't need to interact socially with anybody to be doing these things.

So like, it's a lot easier for people to potentially hide their problem or or their shame through the the the hiding that can be done in an online space.

But does that play a part in people not seeking help if they really should?

Oh for sure, like I I felt ashamed for 10 years.

I felt like I was just a shit person.

I just felt lost and alone because you were you can sit in your bedroom and you can lose.

I can sit on the I was sitting on the couch next to my partner bedding.

She didn't know what I was doing and I was sitting there losing their money and, and having and then trying to hide that the whole time and trying to lie about it and, and just, yeah, it it, it almost ruined me.

And I said to the point where I was just an utterly bright in person by the end of it.

And then I'd go online and just getting stupid arguments and tell people they're idiots online about things I'd never knew about because I always wanted to make people feel as bad as I was feeling in myself.

And it's, it's not like an any other addiction where you can physically see a change in someone like with alcohol and with any type of drug.

We see that physical change in some way.

It's so easy to hide it inside here with a gambling addiction and I think there's still that stigma around that the people don't really see it sometimes as a normal, as an addiction like and drug or alcohol 1 when it works exactly the same way and it it ruins your life in exactly the same way.

No, that's, that's a great point there.

And I think that that comes back to what I can imagine is just the normalisation of it.

And I I just can't understand how we're all so blase about it.

We know it's in an online industry and we know that the the online space is completely borderless.

Like is it even possible for Australia to regulate the online gambling space?

We say bettors and gamblers having access to the the world.

How does that work?

I, I think having something better than having nothing I like, I think that's the point with it all.

Like at the moment we don't have anything to help regulate it at all.

So I think a national regulator would at least an, an independent national regulator would at least make the, the companies more accountable for what they're doing to people in the way they are targeting people and things along those lines and actually have penalties in place that meant something to actually stop.

These companies always have them thinking twice about the way they're operating.

So I, I think it'll work in that sense.

It's, it's never going to be a perfect world.

Like we're never going to have a perfect system for it.

There's always going to be companies popping up.

And we've seen the way the internet's evolved in the last 20 years, in 20 years time, who knows what that what shape that's going to take in terms of gambling on the online.

But yeah, there's never going to be an absolute Nirvana with it all other side.

But no, we just.

We just.

To take it more seriously, it's got to be taken more seriously.

We've got to have better things in place we're doing now.

And yeah, we, we just can't continue to, to have it in children and young adults and young men, young women's faces as much as we do now and and not do anything about it.

With all of that in mind, like we look at the entire current digitised gambling and betting landscape that we've been talking about, One of the things that there's obviously a little bit of an effort being made with those kind of warnings that they whack on at the end of the adverts and things like that.

Obviously they're pushing this concept of responsible gambling.

Are they a genuine effort or is it just doing enough to get the what regulators theories off off their case?

They, I, I think they're insanely stupid.

They, they don't work that they're being proven not to work.

They are they're a slap in the fat.

Anybody who's got a problem with gambling knows that they should be rebending responsibly.

There's no point putting those things on at the end of an ad.

Like people who don't have a problem see those those catch phrase at the end and think they're insanely stupid as well.

Like I don't have a problem.

Why do I need a bit response with it?

But they don't work.

They've been told them to, to put them in place by the federal government who because they want to be saying to be doing something when it's like, I can't tell you how angry it makes me just just see them.

People say they're saying I'll bet responsibly when they, they just had a whole ad that's been on 30 sectors beforehand about how not to bet responsibly.

And at the end of it and then trying to make someone feel bad about it just at the end of it.

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Just if we, if we have to have something at the end of an ad telling to bet responsibly, it's because the gambling company, the, the betting they're just showing it isn't responsible in the way they're showing it, especially with things like multis and raisons.

I know we mentioned multis before.

Like multis are advertised by gambling companies because they make so much profit on it, because nearly everyone who puts the multi on will lose their multi.

Like multis are the hardest things that hit in the world.

And that's the the exact reason they advertise them so much because they make so much money off it.

So why why we allowed to advertise?

And if it's not responsible to do so, will we allow cigarette advertising on TV?

If you put a bit, if you sort of smoke responsibly.

Yeah, exactly.

On the end of it, we, we, we, we know the damage it does.

We know the damage gambling does.

But for this instance related on TV and singer advertising, we took it off because we knew the damage to it.

So it doesn't make any sense at all.

No.

Do you think, do you think it's a case that we're still kind of in the denial stage or all of that's well known and established now and we're just dragging our feet a little bit?

I don't think we're in it.

I think everybody knows the damage it's doing.

I, I, I genuinely think it's that what happens behind the scenes in, in Denver that we don't see, which is why we haven't got to a point where anything's been done.

As I mentioned again earlier, we, the amount of surveys that we've done at the alliance that showed that 3/4 of Australia don't want, they want regulation in place and they want a safer industry and they want the ads banned like this.

The we're not in denial about it.

We know it's an issue.

We, we, we say it's an issue every day, but we have a tiny percentage of Australians who lobby for it and, and they're the ones being listened to and not everybody else.

People like myself who have to fight every day to try and get a 10 minute meeting with, with anyone who wants to listen to us.

But just because we don't have the money to pay for the access, we don't get to tell our stories.

And yeah, like it's, it's just that this small insular grouping camera, we're just stopping everything happening in Australia at the moment.

Yeah.

And I think that that's that's just the most tragic aspect of it.

You know when you boil it down there, it's cash for access, but I don't think you could really call it that with any kind of we'll call.

It that now we've got that.

Yeah, OK.

We'll call it that cash for access.

But just just on that then like what, what kind of regulations do you hope can get through or what do you think would really help to address this situation and kind of help us turn a corner a little bit?

The the advertising has to go that that is the absolute number one.

It's been any time of inquiry that's been done, and I'll keep mentioning that the Murphy inquiry and there anyone who hasn't read that, it is worth going to read, read the stories about the people who have been harmed by this industry and then read the recommendations that Peter put out.

And Peter did so much work.

She worked on this report up until she was on her deathbed.

She passed away from cancer a few weeks after this report came down.

She knew that how damaging this industry was.

So she worked so hard on this report and it had bipartisan support across the parliament as well.

Like it wasn't just Labour people what Peter was, it was Liberals and Greens and Nationals and Independence are on this, on this inquiry.

So a ban of gambling advertising staggered across three years to so it doesn't affect everyone at once is the absolute number one goal.

And it would have helped people.

I can't tell you the amount of people that come to me and I get dozens of people awakening me up on socials, telling me I've got an issue.

Mark, I don't know what to do.

Can you help me?

I feel trapped.

I can't walk the dog without seeing ads on billboards.

I can't watch the news with my family.

I can't read the newspaper on the weekend and do the crossword without seeing it.

Yeah, we had like, we need to remove that from society and that would make a huge difference.

The national regulator would make a huge difference as well.

And pulling back the amount of inducements and the amount of things along those lines that the companies can offer people to continue to bet.

We wouldn't allow people to walk down the street and offer drugs to people as a bonus.

So because because they're a good customer, they wouldn't will now cigarette companies to go and offer cigarettes near school grounds to people because their their parents were betting with an account as well.

Things on those lines like sorry, smoking with a smoking account or something like that.

So having something in place that continually allows people to be have to bet longer and what can that inducements do?

They need to be removed as well.

So they're the three main things and they're all in the Murphy report and sitting on the, on the government's desk at the moment.

But we are more than two years now since that's been put down.

And I know because I gave evidence inquiries and I know how long it's been.

So it's, it's an, I think it's a quite a few easy things you can put in place without it and it wouldn't kill the industry either.

So it would still be there, able to go and enjoy it safely if those things were put in place.

Yeah, right.

So beyond a bit more movement on the Murphy report, what else gives you hope that some real positive change will be or can be made into the future around this issue?

I think it's becoming there's there's more people like Nate wanted to talk about and making normalising talking about gammon addictions in society.

I think it's becoming a bit easier to do.

It was really hard a few years ago when it was nobody really wanted to talk about it.

I couldn't get on anywhere to talk about it.

But like the last 12 to 18 months has been a grounds full of support.

So I think if you have an issue, if you have an issue with the way it is, I think more people are actually going to the MPs, local MPs and talking about it there.

People are removing gambling from from local sporting clubs and trying to move away from those type of things where you have partners clubs or you have pokies venge responsive like football clubs.

Things on little little things like that have are really starting to happen more.

And we see that the alliance we we work a lot with local communities around how they can move away from gambling in in their communities and and and and have different avenues to make money without having to rely on gambling revenues.

So there's, there's lots of little things like that and I think, but the more and more that happens, it's just going to make it the ground sword's going to become bigger and bigger, hopefully where, where governments can't ignore it anymore the way they are and they, they'll hopefully have to do something about it.

So it, it's, it's little incremental games.

We, we, we do see across the board, but unfortunately it probably will stay still take a while.

And I hope it just doesn't really, like I said, ruin a generation of people because we, we, we, we have to go a long way around.

So they're actually having a a nice straight highway to go down with it all.

No, absolutely.

And you, you just touched on something there I'd love for us to, to finish on, which is obviously the positive work that you're doing at the Alliance.

So can you just tell us a little bit about some of the things that the Alliance is doing in case anybody hears this and they they might be looking for for a little bit of assistance?

Yeah, so, so check it out with the Alliance for Gambling reforming.

Top that into Google.

It's the first thing that comes up their website.

We, we do a lot of work trying to to lobby.

We, we, we do a lot of work in terms of trying to speak to people and, and getting them to understand the damages that this industry does to people.

We have people like Tim Cottiello who's a national treasure, who's our chief advocate, who the way he speaks about it is really good to listen to.

We have plenty of interviews on there with him, but we have petitions that are going on the website in terms if you want, if you are feeling strongly about the gambling, have a device inside of things that I am.

We have petitions you can sign which we will present to the Parliament.

We have about 37,000 signatures on there at the moment to show there is this huge groundswell support to remove it.

If you are having issues with your gambling, we have links there which you can read about the ways some people have got pass the gambling.

We have a Voices of live experience programme, which on the part of where we have people who want to advocate for change like I do, we would have gone through gambling addictions.

You can come and join some of our sessions around that if you'd like and thank the people like myself and plenty of other people who have been through addiction and we work together and, and what we can do to advocate for change.

And there's lots of other articles and things along there's to try and open up chats with your own family and your own friendship groups about gambling.

And especially if you're worried about young people in your family and our gambling.

I mean, there's plenty of stats and statistics on there to show them the damage that you can do to yourself and the damage that the industry does.

So they can kind of have at least a better idea of what's going on and and why they should probably think again about gambling at a young age as well.

So it's probably other things I want for this evening at the home in this world, but there's there's.

No, look, thanks so much for your your time today, Mark.

Obviously sharing your experience and your knowledge around what is a very serious issue completely exacerbated by the Internet and and technology.

What have you got coming up and where can people more importantly follow what you're up to?

Yep.

So Mark Kempstead, if you just put my name into any of the any of your social media platforms, I'm on there and I always leave my channels open.

So if you want to reach out and have a chat to me about if you're, if you are struggling with a gambling addiction or you, so you've got someone in your life struggling, feel free to reach out and I'll try and help out.

I'll send you in the right directions.

And I've got a few other possible projects coming out in, in the next few weeks on in radio and TV.

So you're probably, yeah, if you type my name into, to Google as well, you'll see that I can't 100% talk about that at the moment, but there's a few things coming up in the next few weeks as well.

But yeah, look, I, I, I just, I will try and do as much advocacy work as I possibly can and, and try and keep this, this issue at the forefront of people's minds, especially in our federal government at the moment.

Awesome, Mark.

Thank you again so much.

Now Anytime guys, appreciate it mate.

For more info on what we've discussed today, check out the show notes.

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I'm Gareth King, see you next time.