Australian cricket will be without a gambling sponsor adorning the boundary rope for the first time in more than 15 years when the Darwin Test match gets underway after parting ways with betting company Bet365.
Cricket Australia’s major commercial partner Toyota will get the boundary rope signage instead, which was being laid out at Marrara Stadium on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s first ball against Bangladesh.
This year’s expiry of a partnership that had existed since 2012 is also the first time CA are without a major betting sponsor since the late 2000s when Betfair signed on with cricket.
“We negotiate different deals for signage assets across the season,” a CA spokesperson told this masthead. “We are grateful for the support of Toyota which is the boundary rope partner for the Tests in Darwin and Mackay.”
CA declined to comment on whether the non-renewal of the Bet365 deal had anything to do with tightening federal legislation around gambling advertising, which has been a subject of major debate in Canberra lately.
CA has also not ruled out signing another commercial betting partner in the future.
Bet365 is one of 52 bookmakers licensed in the Northern Territory for tax purposes.
Under a raft of legislative changes introduced by the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government in July but yet to be passed in Federal Parliament, betting advertising is to be banned on jerseys and in stadiums, with numerous sports and betting partners already making moves to reduce their footprints.
“We are getting the balance right. Letting adults have a punt if they want to, but making sure our children don’t see betting ads everywhere they look. Because we don’t want kids growing up thinking that footy and gambling are inextricably linked,” Albanese told the National Press Club in April.
“We will build on the reforms that we’ve already delivered to combat gambling harm. Between 6am and 8.30pm, we will cap the number of TV ads for betting agencies at a maximum of three per hour.
“We will ban all gambling ads on cross promotion content that mixes commentary with odds. We’ll end advertising on jerseys and jumpers and in stadiums, and will ban online advertising unless the user is verified as being over 18 and has the ability to opt out.”
While the football codes have had far more visible connections with betting companies, cricket has always trod more carefully, in part because of the game’s chequered history with corruption and match-fixing.
Since the inception of the Big Bash League and the WBBL, CA has declined to accept any offers from wagering providers to sponsor the tournament or teams because the Twenty20 competitions are largely directed at children and families.
Cricket has also heavily restricted the amount of live or in-play betting options offered on the sport by betting companies.
There have been suggestions in recent times that CA could look at raising its revenue from betting product fees, a quasi-tax placed by sporting bodies on the number of markets opened on their sports by betting companies.
Daniel Brettig is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X.