Australia has one of the largest per capita gambling markets in the world. What until recently was a phenomenon associated predominantly with a male profile today presents a different reality: in Victoria, approximately 50% of women participate in some form of betting each year, and around a third do so monthly. A recent study provides new evidence on this change and raises the role of marketing as a relevant factor in this evolution.
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The study that set off alarms in Victoria
The research was conducted between June and July of 2024 by academics from Deakin University and Curtin University. 525 women between 18 and 40 years old residing in Victoria participated, of which 76% lived in the Melbourne metropolitan area. The average age was 31 years and 79% had participated in gambling during the previous 12 months.
The objective was to identify how modern marketing strategies in the gambling industry were affecting the attitudes and behaviors of young women in Australia. The results were conclusive in three directions: gambling had been normalized as social behavior, participation had been actively encouraged, and the perception of risk had decreased significantly.
What mechanisms did the industry use to reach women
The study precisely identified the tools that the gambling industry deployed to expand its female base in Australia. The first was the use of female influencers and celebrities in digital campaigns, mainly on Instagram and TikTok. Participants described these figures as close and aspirational, which meant that their association with betting brands gave gambling a glamorous image difficult to counter.
The second was the linking of betting products with entertainment events and the sponsorship of women’s sports, two spaces where the target audience has a growing presence and where gambling advertising found channels with minimal specific regulation.
The third was the presentation of gambling as a “fun” activity, low risk or associated with charitable causes. This strategy proved especially effective in reducing the emotional distance between young women and betting, by framing a risky behavior within a positive social context.
The central problem: current rules are not enough
The crux of the regulatory debate in Australia is technical rather than political. The current regulatory frameworks were designed to control traditional advertising: television, radio, print. They did not contemplate an ecosystem where content generated by influencers, sponsorships on digital platforms, and CSR campaigns operate as promotion channels with massive reach and minimal oversight.
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A study participant summarized the problem from personal experience: “It makes an addictive activity seem harmless.” That perception does not arise from a conventional advertisement subject to controls. It arises from a social media post, from a sports sponsorship, from a charitable campaign. All spaces where Australia still does not have clear regulatory answers.
The comparison that Australia would prefer to avoid
The study authors establish an uncomfortable parallel for the industry: the path of alcohol and tobacco. In both cases, investment in corporate social responsibility and sponsorships historically functioned as a mechanism to improve the public image of the industry and delay state intervention. Gambling, the researchers warn, could be following the same path.
Australia has regulatory precedents in those industries. The question that the study raises is whether the country is willing to wait until the damage is as evident as it was with tobacco before acting, or whether this time intervention can be anticipatory.
What Australia will need to resolve in the coming years
The study does not formulate explicit regulatory recommendations, but its conclusions clearly delimit the territory where Australia will need to make decisions. The first is digital marketing: defining what constitutes gambling advertising when it is an influencer who disseminates it and not an operator directly. The second is women’s sports sponsorship, a channel that grew steadily and that the study identifies as a vector of normalization. The third is the use of CSR initiatives with a gender perspective, whose actual effect on trust in gambling brands the study documents clearly.
As long as Australia does not update its regulatory tools to respond to those three fronts, the gambling industry will continue to have at its disposal effective, massive advertising channels with practically no oversight to reach the young women that regulators sought to protect.
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