After the losses were revealed, these Sportsbet TV segments stopped

Source : ABC NEWS

The Sportsbet “live odds” segment has been an AFL television broadcast mainstay for years. 

Hosted by former player Nathan Brown, the segment was broadcast before and during games, opening with an analysis of how the players and team might perform.

It would end with a suggested bet for people watching at home.

For as long as the segment has existed, it has attracted criticism from those opposed to gambling advertising.

“The ads are packaged as part of the culture and the norms of the game,” Ross Gordon, from the University of Technology Sydney’s business school, said.

Earlier this year, Australia’s largest betting company appeared to finally acquiesce to this concern, announcing it would stop broadcasting the ads on TV due to “community sentiment”.

But similar promotions have appeared during AFL analysis programs on Channel 7 and on the AFL’s own online offerings, prompting gambling researchers to call for more regulation.

Social media account tracks bets

Part of the criticism involved the types of bets these segments promoted.

Between 2020 to 2023, they were mostly multi bets.

These are called “same-game multis” in the ads, which are two or more bets joined in the one wager related to the same game. If one bet fails, the whole multi fails.

Alex Russell, an associate professor at CQUniversity in the experimental gambling research laboratory, said betting companies preferred promoting multis to single bets, because they made more money from them.

“In every bet, the odds are stacked against you,” he said.

“Multis are a few bets joined together, and if any one bet falls over, the whole multi loses.

Dr Russell said because of the combined odds, the potential payout for the person gambling could be huge.

“It’s easy to make them look attractive – a big payout for a small bet,” he said.

“And they’re less likely to win, so more returns for the betting companies. “

But the extent of the losses associated with these bets promoted by Sportsbet were quantified for the first time by social media account Track My Brown.

Adelaide-based IT professional and comedian Adam Keily anonymously started the account on X in mid-2023.

Curious to see how Mr Brown’s bets fared, Mr Keily placed a hypothetical $20 on each promoted bet.

He then tracked how much a person would win or lose, and posted the results on his accounts.

The ABC recreated Mr Keily’s analysis using Sportsbet videos featuring Nathan Brown that were posted on the AFL’s X account.

The analysis showed from round 20 in 2023, a person would lose more than $800 over 14 weeks if they had put $20 on each bet.

The analysis of these losses led to Mr Keily gaining thousands of followers and being referenced in multiple news stories and on sports radio.

“It started as a sort of comedic venture,” Mr Keily said.

In 2024, the losses were in the hundreds, but slowed due to Sportsbet winding back their promotion of multis after round 7.

Instead, the company promoted single bets, and sometimes no bet at all.

For the first time in years, Nathan Brown’s segment didn’t recommend a bet for Grand Final, and this season, the segment was gone from the broadcast.

Segments continue on other platforms

A Sportsbet spokesperson did not specify whether Track My Brown contributed to the company’s decision to dump the segment.

But they said the choice was based on “listening to stakeholder and community sentiment on TV gambling advertising”.

Identical Sportsbet segments that aired during NRL games, hosted by former player Joel Caine, were also taken down.

While Mr Keily said he was happy to see these ads gone from the broadcast, he said he had noticed similar segments continuing on other platforms.

This included recent “Match Preview” Sportsbet segments featuring Nathan Brown and former player Kane Kornes promoting bets on the AFL’s X account and the AFL website.

But recent posts of these segments promote multis less frequently than in the past, and since the ABC submitted questions to the AFL, they stopped being posted to X.

The AFL did not provide a response on the record, but it is understood its gambling videos are age-gated, meaning users who have declared themselves as under 18 do not see them, and there is an opt-out feature.

The ABC also saw these segments air on television, one between 7pm and 8pm on Monday night during the football analysis program the Agenda Setters on Channel 7, and another during The Front Bar on Wednesday night — where multis were also promoted by comedian Mick Molloy in a weekly segment called “Mick’s Multis”. 

Aside from advertising, Sportsbet also promotes multi bets via their app and social media pages, using high-profile people to spruik them.

Nathan Brown and Kane Cornes are two of many. The ABC counted at least 20 high-profile former players or commentators across AFL, NFL, NBL and racing who recommended multi bets on these platforms.

Ross Gordon, a professor of behaviour and social change at the University of Technology Sydney’s business school, said using former players to advertise gambling helped embed it within the culture of the sport.

He said these examples still proved the need for advertising reform across television and online.

“It’s not just one dimension of gambling marketing, such as the advertising on television or social media, or expert tipping. It’s all of that together,” he said.

Sports betting remains popular

Professor Gordon said marketing had likely played a part in the rise of sports gambling.

A recent Grattan Institute report found that online betting made up about a quarter of all gambling losses in Australia.

“Within the betting category, sports betting and online sports betting in particular is the biggest chunk,” Grattan Institute report co-author Kate Griffiths said.

She said about eight per cent of Australians betted once a month, and it was skewed towards young men.

Despite the well-documented harms of betting, Ms Griffiths said the “powerful” gambling industry had successfully lobbied governments.

“There are some relatively straightforward regulations that could prevent a lot of gambling harm in Australia,” she said. 

Such regulation was detailed after a bipartisan parliamentary committee into online gambling chaired by the late MP Peta Murphy in 2022.

Among 30 recommendations, the committee urged a complete ban of gambling advertising on television and online over three years.

The government flagged a partial television advertising ban last year, but stalled on this reform ahead of the upcoming election.

In statements provided to the ABC, both the Labor and Coalition governments say they would enforce gambling advertising reform if elected.

Sportsbet move positive for the community

A Sportsbet spokesperson did not specifically answer questions about the continued advertising of betting odds on online platforms.

“Sportsbet continues to focus on customer safety and meeting community expectations,” the spokesperson said.

“We continue to invest in industry-leading tools like our Real Time Intervention technology. 

“In the last 18 months we have also driven industry-wide implementation of credit card bans, the introduction of a National Self-Exclusion Register (BetStop) and strict customer ID protections.”

But Professor Gordon believed it was Sportsbet using “voluntary” regulation to try to stave off future regulation.

“This could be perceived as taking the heat off, or dampening community concerns around gambling advertising and gambling marketing more broadly, given there’s push and pressure for regulation,” he said.

Professor Gordon said it did not reduce the need for regulation of the industry and urged the 2022 Senate committee recommendations to be actioned.

“There was almost universal agreement on the harm it’s doing – why the wait?” he said.

Dr Russell agreed reform was needed, but added Sportsbet removing the segments from AFL and NRL broadcasts was still a win.

“It avoids unintentional exposure to kids, whereas people have to be interested in the Sportsbet channels or follow them to see this messaging [around live odds],” he said.

He recommended parents activate social media controls on their childrens’ accounts to help prevent their exposure to gambling advertising while on their devices.

While Track My Brown’s influence is not known for certain, Mr Keily said he believed he had made a difference.

“The nice thing about it is it’s completely founded in data,” he said.

“If we all track our results, how are we all going? It’s a question worth asking.”

He said he would continue the account to more broadly advocate for gambling advertising reform across all platforms.

“I’d love to see gambling ads gone for good,” he said.

Data notes

• Videos from AFL’s X account tagging Sportsbet were used to complete the analysis. A large majority of these bets were the exact same to those recorded by Track My Brown, although some had slightly different odds, or an adjustment to the multi. It is understood the bets were slightly different across TV and online platforms, as seen in comparing the social media screenshots obtained by Track My Brown and the AFL X videos. Therefore, to ensure the most accurate data collection for the purpose of this story, the ABC used the AFL X account and based the analysis on these videos.
• When Same Game Multis and Best Bets were not specifically being promoted, the ABC decided to count a “Best Bet” as a single bet appearing full screen with the odds clearly present, or if Nathan Brown declared the bet a “Best Bet” despite the branding not being evident. It was decided this was a clear promotion of a bet, and therefore met the criteria for a single promoted bet.
• For one round in 2023 (17), the bets on AFL X were not presented by Nathan Brown and bore no resemblance to the bets recorded by Track My Brown for that week. Therefore, given this was a clear movement away from the predominant trend that the X videos and Track My Brown screenshots were largely similar, the Track My Brown data was used for this round instead. There was also a game where a video was not posted, and therefore wasn’t counted and was dropped from the dataset.