Readers of a certain age will recall the Hogan’s Heroes TV series with affection and the implausibility of the Sergeant Schultz defence: “I know nothing.”

But that’s pretty much what the multibillion-dollar gambling industry giants would have us believe.

That’s the response from the industry that has turned Australians into the biggest gambling losers in the world after the deplorable allegations made to a Senate inquiry this week.

It’s not part of our “customer offering”, a euphemism for inducements, to supply drugs and escorts to problem gamblers.

Not to mention bonus bets and the incentives presented to those who are hooked by their VIP “handlers” whose entire job it is to encourage people to pour their money into the profit-making machines of these largely multinational companies.

As federal parliament prepares to debate the government’s gambling “reforms”, the nexus between high-earning sportsmen and the gambling companies that are sponsoring their sports and then preying on their wages should also be homed in on.

Luke Bateman, former NRL player and reformed problem gambler, told the inquiry he attended a private Gold Coast event hosted by a gambling company at which senior figures took illicit drugs with clients.

He rightly pointed out that, at age 23, he was a vulnerable young man. He was also........

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