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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-11-30 Daily Xml
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Gambling Harm Awareness Week

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (15:07): My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding preventing gambling harm. Will the minister please update the council on Gambling Harm Awareness Week, and the Marshall Liberal government's state-first Here For The Game initiative?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:08): I thank the honourable member for her question. It was a great day when we were able to launch the Here For The Game campaign with Adelaide United last week. Adelaide United are to be commended because they were approached by one of the online gambling companies to be a sponsor and they rejected it.

My understanding is that they approached the state government to put together an advertising campaign because they are particularly concerned that the prevalence of online gambling is something which some of the community may engage in, and the research is quite disturbing in terms of the number of children aged between eight and 16, some 75 per cent or more, who can name some of these sports betting companies and the impact that that has in terms of normalising that sort of behaviour.

They have with their key players, and through partnering with the state government, developed this campaign, the ads for which are quite powerful and include messages such as 'Here for the memories, not for the early bet payouts', and 'Here for the fans, not odds-on favourites'.

We do know that the impact of online gambling is particularly prevalent amongst younger males. While in this state we have a traditionally strong policy focus, particularly through this parliament, on electronic gambling machines, the online products available and the betting that is taking place there is certainly the fastest growing area of gambling.

My congratulations go to Nathan Kosmina, the coach, and the leadership of that club in partnering with this campaign. The state government has committed $328,000 over three years to roll out this advertising and make sure that the focus of people who are part of the Adelaide United community is on soccer—or the world game, as our colleague Frank Pangallo likes to put it—rather than on sports betting on their phones and their apps, and we look forward to harm prevention through this very important program.

Other codes may wish to adopt this as well, so that is something that the state government is open to. There is information on the website should they wish to seek to partner with the state government.

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