Anti-Gambling Experts Warn TikTok Against Sportsbet Partnership
"Sportsbet now is being investigated for money laundering and crime. Did TikTok consider that when they signed up at took the money?”
Gambling behemoth Sportsbet has secured an advertising deal with TikTok, despite gambling ads previously being strictly prohibited according to the app’s local advertising policies.
Anti-gambling advocates have warned that TikTok has “blown their reputation” as one of the few social media platforms that resisted showing gambling ads to Australian users, after reportedly signing a recent deal with Sportsbet.
Despite listing the ”promotion, sale, solicitation of, or facilitation of access to …. sports betting” as a prohibited type of advertising in TikTok’s current Australian advertising policies, the social media giant has confirmed that ads promoting the gambling giant Sportsbet have recently been permitted on the platform as part of a “strictly controlled advertising pilot” according to the ABC.
The advertisements — which include young men and women referencing the Sportsbet app, as well as a bizarre comedy sketch that creates a fictional job interview between TikTok and Sportsbet — have been denounced by the chief advocate for Gambling Reform Australia, Tim Costello, who warns the platform risks intensifying gambling addiction across Australia.
“TikTok had a deserved reputation that it was doing the responsible thing [by prohibiting sports betting ads]. It has now blown that reputation,” he tells Junkee.
Costello is also critical of a comments made by a TikTok spokesperson, who claimed that the ads were carefully vetted to only be shown to users over the age of 21.
“It’s nonsense — we know that they don’t have those controls internally to ensure that,” Costello says. “Even if they did, the fastest growing at-risk group is 21-year-olds and older. So either way, it shows the moral irresponsibility of TikTok to grab the cash without any concern for the damage.”
Costello warns that a recent investigation into the gambling company by the Australian financial crime watchdog AusTrak over a failure to comply with anti-money laundering laws is among several reasons TikTok should be wary of partnering with Sportsbet.
“Most of these sports betting companies are foreign-owned and are paying very little tax. Sportsbet now is being investigated for money laundering and crime. Did TikTok consider that when they signed up at took the money?” asks Costello.
“Sports betting companies are so cashed up, it’s such easy money. I’m not surprised that TikTok have just grabbed the money, but it has damaged their brand.”
Junkee has reached out to TikTok Australia for comment.