The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy released a major report on online gambling in June, spelling out the scale of harms it causes and a raft of recommended reforms.

08 November 2026

Australia's House representatives see gaming as urgent health issue

"This is by far the most significant parliamentary report into gambling in over a decade," said Senator Rachel Einfeld, according to a June 29 report in the Australian Financial Review. "It's a major gamechanger, setting out some ambitious reforms and putting gambling clearly on the official agenda."

Gambling Harm Show Us the Money

In a 2020 report, the UK's House of Lords went further, calling in its summer 2020 report Gambling Harm—Time for Action for a complete ban on gambling advertising.

"There is a strong case that reducing gambling harms... would bring significant economic benefits... through lower costs of problem gambling and the rebalancing of gambling spend to other parts of the economy," the UK committee argued.

The Lords Gambling Harm report advocated deposit limits, citing a June 2020 proposal by a cross-party UK group on gambling preventing affordability checks. The group also pushed a 'single sign-on' system that would let a player set mandatory deposit limits rolling across all operators.

But in 2023 the Australian Committee notes that Australia's voluntary pre-commitment systems could also be evaluated to determine if they are reducing harm. The report calls for the evaluation of the National Consumer Protection Framework, which was launched on 21 August 2023, to analyse deidentified customer data and examine the strengths and weaknesses of mandatory pre-commitment systems overseas compared with Australia’s voluntary system.

Will it work?

One doesn't have to drill too deep to find potential gaps in the plan. Consider the proposed link between wages and national sporting events. How can industry work out an algorithm that allows it to pre-determine the odds on a subject like this?