Once a month, somewhere in Darwin, six people sit down together to regulate a multibillion-dollar online gambling industry.

Their decisions affect Australians gambling online across the country – from Darwin to Melbourne, Perth to Brisbane.

Australians lose around $95 million every single day to gambling – more per person than anywhere else in the world. That money belongs to Australians trying to make ends meet, families already under enormous cost-of-living pressure, and young people deliberately targeted and drawn into gambling, potentially setting them up for a lifetime of harm.

You don’t even need to walk into a pub or betting shop anymore. Gambling is in your pocket, 24 hours a day.

The industry’s business model is designed to keep people hooked – through inducements, offers and incentives that encourage vulnerable Australians to keep spending money they can’t afford to lose.

The harm caused by predatory gambling companies is widespread, with approximately one in six adults in Australia being affected by gambling harm, either directly or through someone else’s gambling.

The question is: Who is making sure those practices don’t cause harm?

Right now, the answer is the Northern Territory – a jurisdiction home to just 1 per cent of Australia’s population. It is also home to almost all online gambling companies in Australia – 49 licensed wagering operators, including some of Australia’s biggest bookmakers.

We are in the extraordinary situation where Australia’s smallest government is effectively regulating a national online gambling industry that costs Australians almost $36 billion a year.

And what does that regulatory body look like? As far as we know, the Northern Territory Wagering Commission has no dedicated full-time staff. It meets roughly once a month. Its chair has previously accepted hospitality from companies under its watch and simply disclosed it, as though writing something down is the same thing as not doing it.

This is the entire regulatory apparatus standing between almost all of........

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