Politics
The Prime Minister calls it protecting children from gambling ads. Critics see another policy quietly building the infrastructure for Australians to verify their identity to access everyday online services.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a sweeping overhaul of Australia gambling advertising laws on Thursday, telling the National Press Club the reforms were about protecting children from the deluge of betting ads they face. The changes come into effect from the start of 2027.
Under the package, all gambling ads will be banned during live sport broadcasts on TV between 6am and 8:30pm. When sport is not showing, promotions will be capped at three per hour during those hours. Radio stations will be banned from running gambling ads during school pick-up and drop-off times. Celebrities and sports stars will no longer be permitted to promote gambling products. Betting branding will be removed from players uniforms and sporting venues.
Albanese described the package as the most significant gambling reform ever implemented in Australia. The reforms stem from a report by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy published in June 2023, which recommended a total ban on gambling advertising online. The government did not go that far.
Buried in the announcement is the detail that matters most. Gambling ads will be banned on online platforms unless users have been verified to be over the age of 18. Platforms will need to allow users to opt out of seeing the ads once verified.
That single requirement — age verification to access content online — is not new to this policy. It is part of a much broader pattern of legislation the Albanese government has been quietly building since 2024.
Australia is becoming one of the most comprehensive experiments in online age verification in the world — and most Australians have no idea it is happening.
Age verification requirements under the Online Safety Act came into effect on 9 March 2026, requiring digital platforms to verify users ages before allowing access to adult content. The rules extend to infrastructure providers, meaning internet service providers and phone companies may also need to implement age checks. Search engines including Google and Microsoft must age-check users who are logged in by mid-2026. Social media platforms must prevent under-16s from creating accounts.
The Digital ID Act passed the Senate in June 2024. Trials of the system began in 2025 with a full rollout expected through 2026. Australia Post shut down its own private Digital iD service just days ago, with analysts pointing to the government crowding out private providers — private companies are excluded from the Australian Government Digital Identity System until December 2026 under a condition inserted to secure the Act's passage.
The government has insisted that platforms are prohibited from forcing Australians to use government-issued ID to prove their age online. But the infrastructure being built — layer by layer, policy by policy — tells a different story. Gambling. Pornography. Social media. Gaming. Search engines. Each new regulation adds another category of online activity that requires age verification. The question of how that verification happens becomes more pressing with every addition.
University of Queensland researchers have noted that privacy-friendly age verification is complex and expensive, and that age verification systems have been subject to significant data breaches internationally — including breaches of AU10TIX in 2024 and Persona in 2026.
Australia already has mandatory age verification for online gambling accounts under AUSTRAC rules introduced in 2026. The social media ban for under-16s is in effect. Age verification is now required for R18+ online games. The gambling ad crackdown adds yet another category requiring verified identity to access content online.
Each individual policy sounds reasonable in isolation. Taken together, they are building something much larger — a digital infrastructure where Australians must identify themselves to access ordinary online services.
Albanese told reporters he wants to let adults have a punt if they want to, but make sure children do not see betting ads everywhere they look. That is a reasonable goal. The question Australians should be asking is what kind of infrastructure is being built to achieve it — and who controls it.
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