AFL gambling opt-out feature called 'tokenistic' after website users report seeing odds
A self-exclusion gambling toggle on the AFL website does not stop users from seeing match odds, with one user calling the feature "tokenistic".
The AFL has a partnership with Australia's largest online gambling operator Sportsbet. Various gambling odds and videos can be seen on the league's website and app.
In the settings of the AFL website, a user can click a button to hide betting odds.
Next to this button, the text reads: "By hiding betting odds, you won't see match or premiership odds across this site during your visit."
Another button says "I am 18 or over", and when toggled off, also says it hides the betting odds.
But Adam Keily, the founder of social media account Track My Brown, which tracks Sportsbet betting odds, said the feature did not hide videos promoting gambling.
The ABC confirmed this was the case, finding the toggle did not hide Sportsbet's "match preview" videos posted on the fixture in the days before the game.
When navigating to these videos via other points of the website, they played regardless of whether the toggle was on or not.
But the toggle did remove the Sportsbet odds posted directly on the weekly fixture.
The feature works the same if the user signs into an AFL account.
Mr Keily said this control was "tokenistic".
In a statement, an AFL spokesperson said its website was "age-gated" and gave visitors to the site and app the ability to "turn off betting odds with one simple click".
"The sponsored match previews are in the process of being included in the suite of products not shown via age-gating and/or opt out on the app and website. This will be completed shortly."
The Sportsbet videos posted on the fixture are hosted by former players Nathan Brown and Kane Cornes.
They involve the promotion of bets in a format which could be interpreted as a match analysis.
Sportsbet decided to take similar ads down from the live AFL broadcast at the start of this year after "listening to stakeholder and community sentiment on TV gambling advertising".
These ads have since appeared during other TV shows and on the AFL's online platforms — and appear even if the user of the website chooses to not see them.
Mr Keily also said the default view on the AFL website was seeing the gambling promotions and that the toggle was voluntary.
"There's young people and vulnerable people that are browsing the AFL website that don't want to see the odds," he said.
"They have to make the conscious decision to turn them off, to self-exclude.
"I think that's asking too much of a 12-year-old kid to go and make that conscious decision."
Charles Livingstone, a gambling researcher and associate professor in Monash University's school of public health and preventive medicine, said the toggle was also hard to find.
"If you were just screening the the site to find tips for the weekend … you wouldn't even look for it. There's no pointer to it."
While Dr Livingstone said age-gating content was "not effective", he said a better version would require the user to declare and prove their age when opening the website.
"The government has recently introduced legislation which purports to be able to block underage people from getting onto social media sites," Dr Livingstone said.
"So whatever the solution is for that, then a similar solution needs to be applied to anything that has this sort of promotional material for gambling."
But there is currently no regulatory requirement for sports websites, like the AFL website, to restrict gambling content.
A senate inquiry into online gambling from 2022 called for sweeping reforms, finding online gambling and the advertising of it had a potential to cause "psychological, health, relationship, legal and financial harm".
But none of the 31 recommendations have been implemented yet.
Federal Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland told the ABC before the election there were plans to establish a national regulator if the government was re-elected.
Jennifer Lacy-Nichols, a University of Melbourne researcher who looks into corporates, politics and health, said providing an option to self-exclude from content could be the AFL's reaction to looming gambling regulation.
"I see voluntary regulation from companies when there's a threat of regulation on the horizon, or possibly a need to protect the reputations," she said.
She said actions like this could work to reduce pressure on governments to introduce reform.
"For age-gating, some people look and say: 'they're doing something really good, we don't need to have the same level of energy and pressure'," she said.
"It dilutes the urgency of the problem."
Dr Livingstone said this example proved government regulation needed to be enforced for online gambling promotions.
"We've got a social experiment in real time where young people have never been exposed to so much gambling promotional material, especially associated with sport," he said.
"We do not know what the long-term consequences will be, but at the present time, the signs are not great."
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