Synod on Sports Bet Reform

 The Dean’s Correspondence: to the Cathedral’s federal MP - 30 September 2025

I again assure you of our prayers for your work in Parliament, especially as Member for Sydney where our Cathedral is located.

I write to advise you of the resolution of the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney carried earlier in September. The Sydney Anglican Synod has representatives from over 250 parishes and several dozen Anglican Schools, as well as Anglicare, across Sydney, the Illawarra, Shoalhaven, Southern Highlands and Blue Mountains. So it is noteworthy that this resolution passed unanimously.

M40 Online Sports betting reform

Synod, noting that –

(i)        more than two years have passed since the report ‘You Win Some, You Lose More’, into online sports betting, was handed down by the multi-partisan federal parliamentary committee, chaired by the late Peta Murphy,

(ii)       the federal government has still not responded formally to this report, nor taken concrete steps to implement its 31 recommendations, particularly to ban advertising of online betting products,

(iii)      the Australian Communications and Media Authority regularly issues breach notices to online sports betting companies for failing to protect individuals who have indicated they no longer wish to gamble,

(iv)      in recent years, the NRL, AFL, and A-League have faced significant integrity breach allegations related to online gambling and corruption of match-fixing,

(v)       recent research shows participation in online gambling among Australians is growing rapidly, along with rates of gambling harm, such that about 20 percent of young men (18-34) report some form of gambling harm,

(vi)      research also shows that gambling advertising contributes to a desire in children to gamble when they become adults, that 30 percent of 12-17 year-olds have gambled, and that underage gambling is associated with greater harms in adult life,

(vii)     there is disproportionate participation in online sports betting among people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, where impacts can be more harmful, and

(viii)   research continues to show that gambling addiction is strongly linked to homelessness, suicide, domestic violence, organised crime, family breakdown, and negative health and social outcomes for Indigenous and other Australians,

a)     once again calls on the Prime Minister and his Government to put the welfare of youth and other vulnerable people ahead of profits for gaming barons and big sporting codes, by implementing all 31 recommendations of the ‘Murphy report’; in particular, that the Australia Government enforce a rapidly phased in ban on all forms of advertising for sports betting and other online gambling products, 

b)     requests the Archbishop to convey the content of this motion to the Prime Minister and federal Leader of the Opposition, and

c)     encourages all concerned rectors and church members to write to their local federal MPs, urging them to advocate actively for their communities, privately and publicly, and for the implementation of effective harm minimisation methods for sports betting and other online gambling products.

In support of this motion, which I moved in the Synod, I repeat what I have written to you before.

The ALP Government to which you belong has only made fairly minor gambling harm reforms and has refused to supply its response to the recommendations of the ‘Murphy inquiry’.

As a pastor, who has been involved in gambling-harm reform for 15 years now, I am sick and tired of talking to those impacted by gambling harm… suicidal young men, families with their furniture being repossessed, shame-ridden debt-laden ordinary people from all strata of society, who have been hooked by predatory tactics, especially by online gambling and poker machines.

Online gambling products are the fastest growing cause of this misery. It puts a casino in your pocket.

And the sports betting is being normalised for our children and young people by the advertising and other marketing tactics they are constantly exposed to.

It will be to the ALP Government’s lasting shame if you fail to act on the recommendations of your own Labor parliamentarians, in incisive and unanimous cooperation with MPs from across the political spectrum.

But it is not too late to show some spine and to care for the needy in our community.  

Please advise us urgently as to what the Government’s response will be, rather than regurgitating the very modest reforms enacted so far under the stewardship of Mr Albanese.  

Yours sincerely,

Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney