My smart TV might be spying on me through Automatic Content Recognition technology but there's nothing smart about the advertising it throws my way when I'm streaming free-to-air content.

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Taking up to three screenshots a minute, ACR can tell what I'm watching but doesn't know when I hit the mute button.

It can deduce my gender, socioeconomic status and likely age, data which is sold to advertising brokers, but it's too stupid to know that the ads it assumes I'll be interested in - cruises, funerals, incontinence underwear, hearing aids and online gambling - are muted every time they appear.

If it's targeted advertising, it misses the mark entirely, especially the gambling ads, which trigger a lightning-fast mute-button reflex every single time.

This week, late to the party again, I've discovered I can switch off the ACR by delving into the bowels of my TV's settings. But why is the onus on me? Why do I have to opt out of something I never opted into? Not knowingly at least.

Gambling ads trigger a special loathing in me. Quite apart from the financial and social harms of gambling addiction, I find the repetitive glorification of blokey stupidity mind numbing.

Nothing ruins the otherwise excellent content on, say, SBS than the incessant appeals to join your mates and empty your wallets on same-day multis on the footy. So I've gone into the settings on the app and blocked all gambling ads. Easy.

Even easier for everyone would be an outright ban on all gambling ads. Prohibition won't fix Australia's gambling problem overnight but it will spare us from the deluge of dumbness that accompanies sports broadcasts and intrudes on our viewing.

We banished tobacco advertising and the world didn't end. There was no talk of opting out. The onus wasn't put on us. The government acted decisively, ending radio and TV tobacco ads in 1976 and banning print ads from 1990. Tobacco billboards and outdoor signs disappeared in 1996 and sponsorship vanished in 2006. Most of us are healthier as a result.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates Australians lose........

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