New South Wales Bans Gambling Ads On Public Transport

January 28, 2025
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Amid Australian government inaction on gambling advertising reform, the New South Wales state government has announced a complete ban on gambling advertising for public transport facilities, to be phased in over 12 months.
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Amid the Australian government's inaction on gambling advertising reform, the New South Wales (NSW) state government has announced a complete ban on gambling advertising for public transport facilities, which will be phased in over 12 months.

The Labor government of NSW said on Tuesday (January 28) that the ban would apply to all external and internal advertising space on state transport resources, including buses, metropolitan and intercity trains, driverless trains (the Sydney Metro), light rail, ferries, and all stations and terminals.

The ban on all casino, letter and online betting products will also apply to roadside digital billboards owned by the state government, it said.

NSW is Australia’s largest state by population, with Sydney’s population approaching 6m. The state ban follows Victoria state, the nation’s second-largest by population, which announced its public transport ban for gambling ads in 2017.

“Gambling advertising has been a common sight on our public transport for a couple of years now, and I’m pleased our government is taking action to remove it,” NSW transport minister Jo Haylen said in a statement.

“Parents are rightly worried about the impact on their kids, so it’s not something we think needs to be on our transport network.”

Haylen said the scale of advertising space in the public transport network is massive and involves a “vast” number of advertising contracts covering more than 3,500 buses and 800 train station “advertising assets”, as well as ad space on the train and light rail carriages.

“Because of the scale it will take some time to implement this change, but we will be working closely with our contract partners over the next 12 months to get this done,” she said.

The ban may also affect private assets that profit from transport infrastructure, the government said.

“Where assets are not owned by [the state] (e.g. bus stops, retail outlets or nearby private property), the NSW Government will work with the relevant entitles to see how their advertising can align with the gambling advertising ban,” the statement said.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Tuesday that public and activist complaints about ads for Queensland-based corporate bookmaker Picklebet that flooded Sydney’s train networks in 2024 may have helped trigger the ban.

Picklebet appears to be the latest in a long line of Australian gambling interests that have failed to read the room amid sustained public hostility to saturation gambling advertising.

However, the Herald reported that the company may have contributed to its problematic reception by failing to include gambling helpline numbers on some ads, as required of NSW advertising suppliers.

The NSW government packaged today’s announcement with an eight-point list of recent and current major gambling reforms, including the formation of an independent panel that is trialling and assessing cashless gambling on pub and club slot machines.

The unspoken context of the ban, however, is the state government moving against the gambling industry again after the failure to date of the federal Labor government to follow up on tough online gambling reforms unanimously recommended by a bipartisan parliamentary committee in 2023.

Key recommendations, including a phased complete ban on all online gambling advertising, have garnered wide public and political support, but responsible federal ministers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have seemingly deferred the matter until after this year’s federal election.

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