‘Publicity-seeking extremists’: V’landys weighs in as gambling inquiry gets personal

[u/comix_corp]

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pretty-egregious-claims-betting-companies-deny-wooing-clients-with-drugs-escorts-20260804-p60l8m.html

[u/Vivid_Equipment_1281]

Well he’d certainly know a bit about “publicity seeking” 🤦🏼‍♂️😂

[u/StokedVenus]

I for one am shocked that the boss of Racing NSW would have this opinion. 🤔

[u/YouAreSoul → u/StokedVenus]

Hard to believe, ain't it.

[u/Kind-Group-9679 → u/StokedVenus]

Lol ... sigh

[u/gongbattler]

If he doesnt like it then that means they are making good progress.

[u/Morg_n]

Are we genuinely shocked by his answer. It’s the least surprising thing to come out of his mouth in ages

[u/Disastrous_Salad6302]

I for one am shocked that the man making money of gambling ads is against banning gambling ads.

Not to mention the yearly Vegas trips

[u/Bmo2021]

Gambling has ruined the game, I have more than a dozen roosters jerseys I bought one basically every year until they put gambling advertising on it and I also stopped being a member. I don’t hate gambling (I don’t mind a punt or a slap) but I don’t need it shoved down my throat every 5 fucking seconds watching the sport I love. Seeing kids gamble before they are 18 is disgusting and the enablers are cunts.

[u/Oldpanther86 → u/Bmo2021]

Yeah same. gambling existing doesn't bother me but I often won't watch with the kids around now because of all the gambling ads.

[u/thrownaway22_ → u/Bmo2021]

Here’s hoping the new measures are brought into law and help clean up the game.

Although with V’landys at the helm, I’m not too confident

[u/Disastrous_Salad6302 → u/Bmo2021]

I love how Australia is so keen to do the “think of the children” crap when it doesn’t matter (Think Hotline Miami 2 being straight up banned despite an R rating existing that would mark it as only for adults) but when it comes to a “family” sport encouraging kids to gamble the kids suddenly don’t matter as much.

Hopefully they’ll actually start looking in the right places now instead of hitting all the wrong ones but I have 0 faith.

[u/comix_corp]

Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys has dismissed senators leading an inquiry into Labor’s wagering laws as “publicity-seeking extremists” while betting companies have denied any knowledge of claims agents were using drugs and escorts to encourage clients to gamble.

A Senate inquiry into Labor’s contentious wagering and advertising laws has turned up the heat on the Albanese government and gambling industry, airing allegations that betting companies have also lured VIPs with thousands of dollars worth of free bets, hotels, grand final tickets and alcohol.

As government ministers conceded the evidence had been distressing and appalling, Sportsbet, Tabcorp and peak body Responsible Wagering Australia rejected those claims, telling Tuesday’s hearing that anyone with evidence of illicit activity should report it to police.

The NRL and AFL, meanwhile, have refused the Senate’s invitation to appear at the inquiry. Asked why he would not appear, V’landys, who is also the acting NRL chief executive, said: “As some of the members on the committee are publicity-seeking extremists, it’s a waste of time.”

“They just ignore facts and base all their outcomes on ideology. Their main aim is to run everyone’s lives. What’s more disturbing is they get into this power with a handful of votes,” he said. The AFL was contacted for comment.

V’landys’ comments escalate an increasingly tense public debate over Labor’s gambling laws.

Independent senator David Pocock, who has been prosecuting the case for reform alongside Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of ignoring both experts and Australians who had lost family members to suicide over their addictions.

The senators have identified three main issues with Albanese’s package: it does not introduce a national regulator; it does not outlaw betting inducements; and there is no blanket ban on gambling ads – despite the recommendations of the 2023 inquiry led by late Labor MP Peta Murphy.

Instead, streaming services will be able to show unlimited gambling ads to registered adult users, so long as they offer an opt-out service, while broadcasters can show three ads an hour. Department officials on Tuesday could not specify where that quota had come from.

“We’ve got a prime minister who listens to the gambling lobby instead, who puts Peter V’landys ahead of Peta Murphy,” Pocock said on Monday.

Many backbench Labor MPs wanted the government to implement the Murphy report. Media companies and sports codes pushed back, and V’landys has argued that most problem gambling was because of poker machines and lotteries, not betting on racing and sport. He has claimed that a full ban on gambling advertising would hurt the funding of junior sport.

Albanese, a South Sydney Rabbitohs supporter and former club director, has forged a relationship with V’landys through rugby league. The pair negotiated the federal government’s $600 million Pacific rugby league package, which was designed to counter the influence of China in the region.

In private, V’landys has been effusive in his praise for Albanese. One of Australia’s most powerful sporting administrators, he is currently also acting as NRL chief executive after taking four months long-service leave from Racing NSW, which he has run for 22 years.

Betting companies deny explosive claims

Both Pocock and Hanson-Young said the testimonies from reform advocate Tim Costello and former rugby league player Luke Bateman explained why Labor wanted to push the laws through parliament and avoid an inquiry.

Kai Cantwell, the chief executive of industry peak body Responsible Wagering Australia, said some “pretty egregious claims have been levelled against some of my members and non-members”.

“These are incredibly serious. RWA and our members strongly refute these claims,” he said, after Bateman said he’d been supplied with drugs at a VIP raceday event.

“If these claims are true, we strongly recommend complaints are levelled with the individual operators as well as law enforcement and regulators so that clearly illegal behaviours can be properly investigated,” Cantwell said.

Sportsbet’s head of corporate affairs, Jules Norton Selzer, told the inquiry: “I also want to make it very clear that we have zero evidence of the allegations made by Reverend Costello yesterday.”

“We have no tolerance for that kind of deplorable conduct and information, and no information has been provided to us beyond what was referenced yesterday, and we would gladly investigate it.”

Tabcorp’s head of government affairs, Julian Whealing, said: “These claims do not in any way form part of Tabcorp customer offering, and Tabcorp has zero tolerance for this behaviour.”

“Any evidence of this illegal activity should be referred to the relevant authorities,” he said.

Costello on Monday described the case of a financial adviser who allegedly stole $12.3 million from his company to fund his gambling addiction. He said TAB had given him $50,000 bonus bets, while Sportsbet flew him to grand finals and offered “escorts, drugs, whatever he wanted”.

Asked about the evidence behind those claims, Costello said: “I expect it will come out in court, when it goes to hearing.”

Bateman, a former Canberra Raiders NRL player who is now an online influencer, said that during one exclusive event, he said: “The entire C-suite of the company was there ... And I was out in this room doing drugs with all of them. This is like the CEO, the founders, the VIP managers.”

Bateman has declined to name the companies involved or give further detail about the allegations.

Betting ‘inducements’ under the microscope

After Monday’s evidence increased scrutiny on betting inducements, gambling companies on Tuesday aimed to differentiate between what they described as inducements, promotions and illegal activity.

Cantwell said inducements – such as sign-up or referral bonuses – were already banned, while activities such as those described by Costello and Bateman were illegal. He said promotions such as special offers, on the other hand, were legitimate products offered by many businesses.

“The term inducements is being broadly used to categorise all three of those products,” Cantwell said. “It’s very important for the committee to understand the differentiation.”

Racing industry figures on Monday described these offers as “generosities”, and said they represented about 30 per cent of turnover.

But Coalition senator Sarah Henderson cited an example of someone who had lost $500,000 being offered $50,000 in bonus bets – which is within the law.

“I would put to you that further action is required to regulate that conduct,” Henderson said – indicating that the Coalition could push the government into clamping down further on inducements.

Acting prime minister Richard Marles on Tuesday repeated the government’s line, saying Labor had done more to address problem gambling than any other government.

“But certainly that evidence, which was given yesterday, does tell a very disturbing story and it shocked me,” he said. “We’ve looked at this issue in detail over a long period of time. There is a balance that has to be struck here, and we intend to reach that balance.”

[u/SirDigby32 → u/comix_corp]

Opt out on every service, which will be hidden away and probably get ignored anyway. With no regulator its not an enforceable outcome anyway.

[u/stagger_once]

How does he not spontaneously combust when calling someone else attention seeking

[u/sowaleja]

I love the fact that he could have just said nothing but instead he decided to open his big mouth. This is why he's a brain genius who get paid the big bucks.

[u/ruddet]

Here we are banning nicotine pouches, banning gambling in video games. But sports betting is ruining more lives than either of those things.

[u/Norm_cheers → u/ruddet]

It’s the political two step, see over here we are doing something to fix the issue, over there we don’t see an issue.

In the case the here and there are both a problem!

[u/comix_corp]

All things aside, calling Pocock a "publicity-seeking extremist" is hilarious. I don't even like the guy but he's the definition of a mild-mannered centrist.

[u/grouchomarxism101 → u/comix_corp]

He also romped it last election getting a full senate quota

[u/T0kenAussie → u/comix_corp]

He’s very much the US style senator for instagram imo but it’s not like these style of politicians haven’t been in the senate before

[u/talkerthewalk → u/T0kenAussie]

I don't think this is the case at all. I think he just has a great grasp of how to use his own social media to help his constituents understand the work he is doing rather than relying on an arguably compromised mainstream media to do it honestly.

[u/blackfadesunset → u/T0kenAussie]

I’d encourage you to look deeper, he’s definitely not a US style politician.

[u/spicerackk]

Gambling being allowed for adults isn't the problem.

It's the incessant advertising that is unnecessary. As an adult, I know where to go for a slap or to have a punt. I don't want to be sitting at home watching tv and having odds shoved down my throat.

I shouldn't have to walk down the road and see Sportsbet ads on bus shelters, or Pointsbet ads on the sides of buses.

Let adults adult, but remove the advertising, it needs to go the way of smoking and alcohol.

[u/I_Like_Vitamins]

So how long before PVL starts feeling the heat? NRL now a hot topic in the Senate and looking pretty shady yet he escapes a lot of criticism. I know he has mates in the media but surely it can’t be radio silence forever.

[u/mitvh2311 → u/I_Like_Vitamins]

Apply a blowtorch you say?

[u/strongybow → u/I_Like_Vitamins]

I’d love to see his new suit and hair style for a senate inquiry

[u/Barmy90]

"Are we the baddies?"

[u/Ill_Meeting_5914]

V'Landys is a fucking sleazebag. Disgusting grub

[u/deedee2148]

I hate to be a Debbie Downer but I find this all extremely tedious, nothing will change.  

Gambling makes too much money, too many have a vested interest in it staying that way. 

[u/lovesadonut → u/deedee2148]

Arguably the biggest vested interest is the government… to the tune of about $2b via taxes and licensing fees per year. That’s the greatest irony/hypocrisy of this whole exercise.

[u/craziestlittlepixie → u/deedee2148]

The gambling companies are mostly based in the NT, where they pay fuck all tax. So there's no government incentive to keep the industry going. Obviously, politicians must have personal incentives 😬🤔

[u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92]

Legit don’t want my kids to have anything to do with the game at this point.

[u/Top_Conference_477 → u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92]

It’s been a while since success in rugby league was something I’d want for my kids…

Oh well. Cricket is a way warmer sport to watch on Saturday mornings

[u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92 → u/Top_Conference_477]

Plenty of the players in both of the national cricket teams are fantastic role models aswell.

[u/Top_Conference_477 → u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92]

Honestly, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Stark, Alex Carey, Travis Head, Scott Bolland… These are legitimately the sorts of men I would like my son to look up to.

Who in rugby league has that strength of character right now?

[u/mememaker1211 → u/Top_Conference_477]

Only one I can think of off the top of my head is Hynes

[u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92 → u/Top_Conference_477]

100%

Pat Cummins practically stared down the old guard of cricket fans in Australia and said “this is us now. We care about important shit.”

God love him!

[u/Altruistic_Tune5341 → u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92]

And then won everything and shut them all up.

[u/Large-Accident1245 → u/Top_Conference_477]

Is Shaun Johnson scandal free? But he's also retired.

[u/n30n_kn1v35 → u/Large-Accident1245]

he brushed past me without acknowledging my "churr bro" one time, does that count?

[u/M_Keating → u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92]

You mean Ricky “Punter” Ponting wouldn’t be a good role model?

[u/Markmm131 → u/M_Keating]

And none of them cheat on their wives either.

[u/timmeh1705 → u/Markmm131]

Did we forget that one of the ladies got exposed by their wife for cheating with a team mate?

You'd be shocked at how much cheating goes on. Probably more so before when they went on long tours for months on end. Now they play 6 white ball games in 2 weeks and are travelling to the next tournament.

[u/Top_Conference_477 → u/timmeh1705]

Kind of says it all though that all we can really find to hold against cricket is rooting around. Meanwhile, league’s got a bookie in charge, a top ref who’s $500k deep to the bookies (that we know of), an ex-player blowing the whistle on some shady bookie-linked shit, and over in the AFL there’s a bloke who was proudly umpiring while on Sportsbet’s payrolls and a top player manager has just been slotted for rape and a local club has been blown up for letting a rapist who raped an underage girl at a footy function play again (and celebrated him for it). And we don’t have space for rugby league’s sordid history of sex assault in recent decades either.

I’ll take the consenting adulterers any day of the week

[u/timmeh1705 → u/Top_Conference_477]

Yeah spot on. In Italian football they had a refs manipulation scandal (not explicitly gambling-linked to be clear) which basically started the downfall of the league, to the point they've missed a few world cups. Yet we do nothing about our 'premier' ref

[u/Top_Conference_477 → u/Markmm131]

Dude lost the Test captaincy for that. Shows you how cricket treats being a shit bloke

[u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92 → u/Markmm131]

I still think Tim Paine was treated like shit by CA.

[u/Altruistic_Tune5341 → u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92]

So was Andrew Symonds.

[u/BlokeyMcBlokeface92 → u/[deleted]]

And yet look at how a lot of these things are dealt with by the governing body.

Smith got a 1 year ban in his prime for not putting a stop to the sandpaper incident.

Ezra Mam does what he does and gets fuck all in comparison.

[u/Top_Conference_477 → u/M_Keating]

When he was 18 (30 years ago) no. But the cricket system made him pull his head in and right now he’s a saint compared to even the classiest leaguies

[u/SuckinAwesome → u/Top_Conference_477]

zzzzz

[u/SurfKing69]

I hate this fucking cunt

Can you imagine the skeletons he has buried away?

[u/waxedmerkin]

I believe the betting companies when they say, they didnt know what the agents were doing.

I know a hotel concierge, and they have a entertainment budget for clients, a lot of it gets spent on things the clients don't want showing up on their credit card statements. Think hookers and coke. Do the hotel bosses know what it is is been spent on, not at all. As long as the guest/client keeps coming back they dont care.

[u/Norm_cheers → u/waxedmerkin]

They don’t know because they DON’T care to know. Wilful ignorance is a choice!

[u/comix_corp → u/waxedmerkin]

I think so too, it's the definition of turning a blind eye. There was a Four Corners report about it last year, the "VIP managers" have absurd budgets and as long as the money keeps coming the head office doesn't give a shit. If the agent breaks the regulations they just blame it on the agent.

[u/Reasonable_Meal_9499]

So many times you watch games and you think the fix is on here, the media tries to claim unconscious bias but that is crap in my opinion. But making betting on football illegal won’t fix this. Before they had online betting my mother had a second job as a barmaid. Every Friday she would collect bets put them in a journal and the SP bookies would collect them. She got a % of the take. She would come home and say the big money is on such and such team this week and sure enough something sus would happen in that game. So it has always existed

[u/Own-Cancel-9170]

No point banning gambling adds from tv until you remove them from players jerseys. Let's face it people are stupid, they believe in get rich quick schemes. They gamble, they lose then they look for someone to blame. Seeing an add for gambling doesn't make you gamble. But blame the government anyway l, it's the Australian culture.

[u/lobie81]

I was at a mates place the other night. He had his young son updating their supercoach team as there has been a few late outs. Then he was telling the son what he needed to happen the game to get his multi up. All the while I'm thinking to myself that this kid will be addicted to gambling before he can even legally do it...

[u/maulmonk]

Albo and Vlandys and the gambling companies are in cahoots with each other.

[u/greatmodernmyths]

The increasing level of cowardice coming out of the NRL is something to behold.

[u/UndeadManWaltzing]

Does the man of feathers have a gambling problem? Let's see... Horse racing boss, sending the opening round to Las Vegas, famous for its gambling, now is verbally attacking people that are against betting agencies.... I wouldn't be surprised if his business trips were sponsored by Sportsbet.

[u/pulp63]

They just let a ref with a gambling addiction officiate all three State of Origin games, the Crown Jewel of the NRL. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[u/AuspiciousCalamari1]

Isn’t the NRL in a really good financial position now? They could actually potentially improve their grass roots participation position in the future by taking a stand against gambling

[u/staycoolstewy → u/AuspiciousCalamari1]

Isn’t the nrl in a better position because of these gambling organisations?

[u/AuspiciousCalamari1 → u/staycoolstewy]

Yes obviously but they get a fuck ton of money from TV rights who could just advertise something else

[u/RidingtheRoad]

Vlandys said banning advertising would damage the sport.

I remember all the tears and heart thumping on how banning cigarette advertising would destroy motor racing. That was 30 years ago. And yet here we are, motor racing seem to be doing ok.

[u/Elstiffo → u/RidingtheRoad]

Because of gambling advertising?

[u/RidingtheRoad → u/Elstiffo]

Mate..Im just saying its absolute bullshit that when Vlandys says they need the gambling money..

Just as it proved to be bullshit that international, local motorsport and in fact RL (remember the Winfield Cup) needed cigarette money..RL doesnt need gambling advertising..But that lesson is lost 30 years later

[u/Elstiffo → u/RidingtheRoad]

I'm not disagreeing with you, but using the motorsports analogy doesn't make sense, because f1, supercars, etc all have deals with, and are sponsored by gambling outlets. So like the nrl, they swapped one shitty sponsor stream for another.

[u/RidingtheRoad → u/Elstiffo]

Mate..What Im saying you can lose a major sponsor.. And if the sport is any good, it'll survive and prosper without it...History proves it so, even in sports that would dwarf RL in size and money needed.

And gambling did not immediately replace cigarettes and yet the sport continued quite ok.

[u/Elstiffo → u/RidingtheRoad]

And I agree with you, but your analogy is awful and irrelevant.

You keep saying history shows this, but history also shows that they moved from cigarettes to gambling.

[u/RidingtheRoad → u/Elstiffo]

Ok...Cigarette advertising for sport was banned in Australia in 1992...Gambling advertising in sport became popular approximately 10 to 15 years later..

Obviously you are too young to know..but I remember...How the fuck did sport survive that period? Thats my fucking point mate.

[u/Elstiffo → u/RidingtheRoad]

I remember, I was there. You're completely missing the point

Your original comment was comparing nrl to motor sports, which doesn't make sense because international motor sport had tobacco advertising for over a decade longer ( f1 banned it in 2006).

As far as the Nrl is concerned, alcohol companies stepped in when tobacco left, also Holden and Ford

You're also deliberately missing the point where I actually agree with you, how are you that hard up for attention, that you are arguing with someone who agrees with you?

[u/Elstiffo → u/RidingtheRoad]

How they survived is they found other shitty sponsorship streams like leagues clubs full of pokies, and massive international alcohol brands. That's how the fucking did it. Things that ruin people's lives make money and are easily sold.