Upping the ante

The new dominance of online betting

Featured in

  • Published 20230801
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-86-3
  • Extent: 196pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

‘WELCOME TO SPORTSBET.’ This message appears on my phone screen immediately after I set up my first online betting account at home one afternoon. The process is much simpler than I expected. It takes me less than two minutes to download the free Sportsbet mobile app, submit my personal details for instant verification and deposit the first funds into my digital betting wallet. I decline the option of setting a betting limit and proceed to the homepage. 

One of nearly forty online betting companies currently operating in Australia – many of which are based in the Northern Territory for historical tax purposes – Sportsbet is a household name these days, as recognisable as Qantas and Vegemite. Now owned by the UK-based global gambling behemoth Flutter Entertainment, it has grown into Australia’s biggest online betting company since it was established in Darwin in 1993: it now has more than one million Australian customers, a current market value of $12 billion to $14 billion, and nearly a 50 per cent share of the national online betting market. 

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

A subantarctic sentinel

ReportageIt didn’t take long for this knowledge to spread wider – and for Macquarie Island to become an open-­air slaughterhouse. By December 1810, another three Sydney-­based sealing gangs were operating there and, within the first eighteen months of operation, roughly 120,000 fur seals had been killed for their fine pelts.

More from this edition

Oh, the shame of it

Non-fictionModern leisure emerged in the West in the early 1700s when French and English cities developed new forms of society built around urban amenities – parks, cafés, fairs and shopping districts – servicing an expanding class of people with discretionary time and income. Public museums as storehouses of national culture appeared a little later in the nineteenth century where they contributed to the development of so-called ‘rational recreation’, a species of serious leisure intended to ‘civilise the masses’.

At the subway station

Poetry In a world of cunning shadesI’m the only sleuth. I hop on the train bound for a futureI’ve been hired to investigate. For a moment all...

'An idle moment' by Carody Culver

An idle moment

IntroductionIn 2008, Finnish performance artist Pilvi Takala embarked on an audacious project called The Trainee. For one month, she worked as a marketing intern at the global accounting firm Deloitte. Instead of carrying out the usual responsibilities expected of this role, Takala did…nothing. 

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.