Once a month, somewhere in Darwin, six people sit down together to regulate a multibillion-dollar online gambling industry.

Their decisions affect Australians gambling online across the country – from Darwin to Melbourne, Perth to Brisbane.

Australians lose around $95 million every single day to gambling – more per person than anywhere else in the world. That money belongs to Australians trying to make ends meet, families already under enormous cost-of-living pressure, and young people deliberately targeted and drawn into gambling, potentially setting them up for a lifetime of harm.

You don’t even need to walk into a pub or betting shop anymore. Gambling is in your pocket, 24 hours a day.

The industry’s business model is designed to keep people hooked – through inducements, offers and incentives that encourage vulnerable Australians to keep spending money they can’t afford to lose.

The harm caused by predatory gambling companies is widespread, with approximately one in six adults in Australia being affected by gambling harm, either directly or through someone else’s gambling.

The question is: Who is making sure those practices don’t cause harm?

Right now, the answer is the Northern Territory – a jurisdiction home to just 1 per cent of Australia’s population. It is also home to almost all online gambling companies in Australia – 49 licensed wagering operators, including some of Australia’s biggest bookmakers.

We are in the extraordinary situation where Australia’s smallest government is effectively regulating a national online gambling industry that costs Australians almost $36 billion a year.

And what does that regulatory body look like? As far as we know, the Northern Territory Wagering Commission has no dedicated full-time staff. It meets roughly once a month. Its chair has previously accepted hospitality from companies under its watch and simply disclosed it, as though writing something down is the same thing as not doing it.

This is the entire regulatory apparatus standing between almost all of Australia’s biggest online bookmakers – Sportsbet, Bet365 and Ladbrokes among them – and tens of billions of dollars in losses every year.

Earlier this year, the NT government had a chance to address issues exposed by an explosive Four Corners report of poor regulation and conflicts of interest. It chose to amend the Racing and Wagering Act to strengthen some conflict of interest provisions, but commission members are still allowed to hold interests in gambling companies outside the NT – companies that they may be responsible for regulating.

These changes made by the NT government essentially just rearranged the furniture. They did not create a legal duty on betting companies to prevent harm. They did not ban inducements designed to keep people gambling. They failed to put mechanisms in place to protect young people. And they did not make gambling companies meaningfully accountable for harm they cause.

This matters well beyond the Territory’s borders, because the harm it is failing to prevent is not confined. In 2023, the federal parliamentary inquiry into online gambling, chaired by the late Peta Murphy, recommended a dedicated national online gambling regulator whose sole purpose would be reducing harm, instead of leaving it to whichever jurisdiction happened to have the lowest bar to clear.

Last month, the federal government had the chance to adopt that recommendation. Instead, we got an advertising timetable that still puts gambling ads in front of anyone watching Friday night football, and inducement rules that ask companies to be a little more careful about when they push the products, not whether they exist.

And the Northern Territory is still left holding the reins for the national industry.

With this responsibility comes an extraordinary leadership opportunity to make sure the laws that are regulating this industry protect people from harm. That is why I am introducing a Gambling Harm Prevention Bill in the October sitting of the Northern Territory Parliament.

The bill starts with a very simple proposition: If we know something causes harm, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to prevent that harm.

It would make preventing and minimising gambling harm an explicit purpose of our gambling laws.

It would place a legal duty on betting companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm, including identifying warning signs and intervening before a customer reaches crisis point, rather than continuing to profit while someone chases their losses.

It would ban harmful inducements, including free bets, bonus bets, deposit matches and VIP schemes designed to encourage people to start, continue or return to gambling.

It would strengthen the independence of the Wagering Commission, with clearer conflict-of-interest rules, public declarations, restrictions on gifts and benefits, a five-year cooling-off period and greater representation of expertise in gambling harm, public health and consumer protection.

It would introduce stronger protections for young people, including deposit limits for 18-24-year-olds and restrictions on gambling advertising reaching children.

And it would make penalties meaningful for a major industry: Up to $10 million or 10 per cent of annual revenue.

If passed in its current form, this bill could deliver the meaningful change that the federal government failed to provide Australians with.

But in the Northern Territory Parliament, the Country Liberal Party, which champions the interests of the gambling industry at every turn, holds 17 of the Assembly’s 25 seats. It has argued in parliament that we need to keep regulations weak and taxes low, so we don’t scare off the industry.

In response to concerns around the impacts of gambling harm, the minister responsible for racing and wagering invited me to come with her to the races to see how many jobs it generates. The 2021 Census recorded just 439 people employed in “other gambling activities”. Even with NT industry groups’ claims of around 1000 wagering-related jobs, this is hardly a major contributor to an economy employing around 150,000 people.

The NT government weighs the industry’s 2 per cent tax contribution, while somehow ignoring the billions of dollars in harm it causes. A race to the bottom on regulation is how the NT ended up hosting an industry that pays such little tax on its winnings.

The spin will tell you this bill is about banning gambling, and about limiting individual freedoms. What it’s really about is preventing the harmful practices within the industry. To label a bill that targets the specific practices that are designed to maximise harm an “anti-flutter” bill is shamefully misleading.

It is equally misleading to pretend that the sophisticated systems these companies use to keep people gambling are somehow about freedom of choice. Freedom of choice doesn’t mean companies should be free to deliberately exploit vulnerability.

Looking after people is the job of government. Our laws need to protect people, not the industries that profit from causing them harm.

This bill will be decided by a parliament of 25 people, who were voted in by 250,000 people, and are making decisions on laws that affect millions of Australians.

We have overwhelming support from within the NT and across the country. I recently caught up with Andrew Wilkie MP, federal member for Clark and long-term advocate for gambling reform, to talk about my bill. He told me:

“You’ve got the hopes of hundreds of thousands of Australians riding on you, all of those people who have a gambling addiction or are judged to be at high risk of developing a gambling addiction, plus all of their mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends, and work colleagues. You’re our big hope at the moment. If you can get reform in the Territory, that will benefit the entire country.”

This is a moment of opportunity for Australia’s smallest jurisdiction to take leadership and make significant and meaningful change – change that will unequivocally prevent harm for people in the NT and across all of Australia.

Justine Davis is the independent Member for Johnston in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly

Republished from The Point