Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andree Froude: Problem Gambling Foundation Director of Advocacy and Public Health on the changes to online gambling advertising regulations

Transcript

Andree Froude: Problem Gambling Foundation Director of Advocacy and Public Health on the changes to online gambling advertising regulations · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government's introducing harsher rules for overseas online casinos. This
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is while also allowing them to advertise here. A limited
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: number of licenses will be available for three year terms,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and the operators will be required to meet certain standards
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: before they can offer services. Andre Food is with the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Problem Gambling Foundation. She's with me this morning, Andrew, thank
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you for being here. I wonder with online hello, I
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: wonder with online gambling, is it actually just too hard
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to regulate period?
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: But that's a really good question, and I know that
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: around the world, you know, regulators have battled with this
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: because there are so many operators out there. But regulation
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: is the right approach and we totally agree with regulation
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and having a licensing system. But obviously there's a lot
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: more detail to come yet, and we want to make
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: sure that there's really robust harmonimization and consumer protection at
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: the forefront of any approach to this regulation.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Because if you are a problem gambler and you really
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: want to gamble online, you I mean, where there's a will,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: there's a way. Surely you'll get a VPN, you'll work
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: around our laws in New Zealand.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not illegal for New Zealanders to gamble on
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: these sites, and what people don't generally understand is that
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: they're not protected by New Zealand law. So while they
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: can gamble on these sites, you know, if something happened,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: they couldn't get their money out or whatever the situation
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: might be, they don't they're not protected by our laws
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: and our Gambling Act.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And so these changes, they're going to be able to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: advertise legally in New Zealand. Now, Yes, yeah, so, because
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I mean I get fed ads that are you know,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: for gambling things, and when you go online, I think
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: everybody gets that through Google or whatever it is. Do
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you think we're going to see more ads now that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it's legal or do you think it will just be
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the same.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Look, we've been absolutely bombarded with ads in this country,
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  Speaker 2: and a lot of that has been because this market
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: here is largely unregulated, you know, in terms of online
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: gambling regulation. We're about the last country, you know, the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: last cab off the rank in terms of that. So
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: we have been targeted. Even though it is illegal for
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the advertising of online of overseas online gambling at the moment,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: we've still seen these ads. As you said, you know,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: social media, they're everywhere so yes, we will see more
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: of it, but what we do hope is well, we'd
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: really like to see the advertising as gambling band completely,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: but if that's not going to happen, we really really
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: need to see strict measures in place to limit the
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: volume of advertising and put restrictions around the time when
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: gambling can be advertised. I mean it's age restricted. We
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: don't the ads on TV during peak time when children
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: might be watching, for example, with advertising or certainly not tobacco,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: so gambling is no different and we need to see
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: much tougher restrictions around that.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Andrew, thank you very much for your time this morning.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: That's Andrew Food the Problem Gambling Foundation. For more from
• 3:20
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• 3:24
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• 3:26
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