Calvin Ayre – A group of anti-gambling campaigners in Australia is threatening to launch a simulated sports betting website and mobile app specifically designed for kids as young as five years old. SimBet.com offers a tongue-in-cheek mission statement that sports betting is “only a problem for people that are no good at it!” Since “chances are that our kids are going to give it a go at some point,” SimBet feels duty bound to “teach our children about sports betting from a young age.”
SimBet says it will launch its “innovative and child-friendly” site/app in February, offering “Sports Betting Fun for the Whole Family.” The SimBet site claims its app will be “100% Educational” in that kids not only learn valuable betting lessons, “they also become maths geniuses!”
The site features gag testimonials from children as young as five years old saying things like “at first I wasn’t very good at winning, but in the end I won lots!” Reaction to the site has been mixed, with some suggesting the humor is too subtle for kids to understand they’re meant to be learning about the supposed evils of gambling. (Others might suggest that keeping kids entirely in the dark on gambling is equally ill-advised and compare gambling education with sex education: it’s out there, here are the facts, now go live your life… Just keep a sharp eye on your marbles.)
An anonymous Simbet spokesman told The Advertiser that the group was “simply fed up with the amount of sports betting advertising on TV,” in particular during live sports broadcasts and sports-themed programming. Because the effect of this advertising on kids is unknown, SimBet decided to create “a simulated betting platform so kids will at least be ‘experienced’ and ‘educated’” when they’re old enough to legally gamble. That said, the spokesman copped that the “initial purpose” of the site was to “create a huge outrage on social media that would force changes” in sports betting advertising regulations.
