Gambling advertising has become synonymous with sport, with almost every second advertisement aired during a sporting telecast or on radio associated with betting.

From catchy campaign slogans to the use of Hollywood actors, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who couldn’t recall the name of a least one of the prominent betting agencies associated with these adverts.

Melbourne University social work lecturer Dr David Gallant says attendees at sports events are bombarded with betting ads at venues, and even conversations away from them almost always entail hearing about the odds.

Betting agencies are also key sponsors for many of our major sporting codes, including the AFL and NRL.

This uncomfortable relationship between sport and gambling was brought to the fore earlier this month when Sportsbet was fined a record $2.5m for breaching Australia’s spam laws earlier this month.

These laws are designed to stop people being bombarded with unwanted marketing text messages and emails. Sportsbet also undertook to refund customers $1.2m as a result of their marketing tactics.

Australians lost approximately $25b across all forms of gambling between 2018 and 2019. Per capita, our losses are amongst the highest recorded in the world, and betting on sports is the fastest growing form of gambling in Australia.

Dr Gallant says Australia needs to disentangle gambling from our beloved sports.

“Robust discussion is necessary as to what is the solution to this issue, because huge amounts of money goes back into the grassroots of these sports,” he told Millsy at Midday host Steve Mills.

Press PLAY below to hear their detailed discussion on sports betting.