Australian betting operator Tabcorp is coming under fire for a sweet street-level promotional campaign built around jelly beans.
On Thursday morning, Justin Field, a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, was passing through Martin Place train station in Sydney when he was approached by a person wearing a TAB-branded T-shirt, one of at least three such individuals Field observed distributing promotional material to commuters.
Field told Buzzfeed News said he wouldn’t otherwise have paid much notice to a transit hawker but Field is the Greens point person on gambling issues, so he wanted to see what was up. Field said he was handed a pack of jelly beans with a TAB sticker bearing the slogan: “Nothing’s as sweet as a win.”
Trouble is, NSW’s Betting and Racing Regulation 2012 prohibits advertising gambling products without an accompanying pitch that reminds gamblers to gamble responsibly and includes contact information for problem gambling support services. Tabcorp’s bean bag contained none of this info (although it did helpfully display nutritional info on the back).
Apart from the apparent violation of gambling law, Fields questioned whether it was appropriate for Tabcorp to be promoting its very adult wares with a decidedly kid-friendly treat. Field suggested it was “absolutely certain” that some commuters would dump their bag out upon their return home, where the beans – and their message – would end up in the hands of kids.
A Tabcorp spokesperson said the jelly bean promo was built around the launch of the Championships racing event. The beans and the other promo material – stress balls and mints – “targteted only people aged 25 or over” and featured “only general TAB branding and contained no promotion of odds or direct encouragement to place a bet.”
Tabcorp’s bean brouhaha comes just as Australia’s government is considering new restrictions on gambling advertising during live televised sports broadcasts. However, ABC reported on Wednesday that the Senate Estimates Committee had recommended against the new restrictions based on testimony from broadcasters and bookmakers that viewers under 18-years old comprised a “very small proportion” of the live sports TV audience.
