The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is reminding all authorized internet service providers to adhere to gambling advertising regulations, as the organization has discovered some discrepancies in providers’ comprehension of these regulations.
The ACMA emphasizes that the rules, enacted in 2018, forbid gambling advertisements from being aired during live sporting events on television, radio, and the internet between 5:00 AM and 8:30 AM, with limitations also applying to advertisements at other times.
The ACMA has been assessing the effectiveness of these rules and has declared that in the second year of these measures, the agency conducted three inquiries into providers.
Although the ACMA did not uncover any major issues, it did find some inconsistencies in the understanding of the rules by some service providers.
These inconsistencies involved the utilization of exceptions provided under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, which permits online simultaneous broadcasts of live sporting events to be exempt from advertising regulations.
The ACMA stated: “The ACMA has discovered that this exemption is being widely utilized, occasionally in conjunction with exemptions from the broadcasting conduct code restrictions for low-rating subscription television channels.”
In Australia, the number of people watching live sports online is increasing. It’s crucial to think about the possible percentage of online viewers for these events, even if the total number of viewers is small. This is important to make sure that exemptions continue to work as they should.
The ACMA also pointed out some problems with record-keeping rules. They noticed that while companies are recording and keeping track of gambling ads shown during live sports events, there are differences in the types of records kept by different companies.
So, the ACMA encouraged companies to check their records to make sure they follow advertising rules, especially for digital ads.
The ACMA said, “Even though our official monitoring program is finished, the way live sports events are broadcast and streamed is always changing.”
“We’ll keep watching how things are developing in this area and how these changes affect gambling advertising rules.”
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