Leading gambling harm advocate, Wesley Mission, has today welcomed the launch of BetStop, the national self-exclusion register for all licensed interactive wagering services.
Wesley Mission CEO, Rev Stu Cameron, says BetStop is a long-overdue means by which people can take control of their online gambling, a wagering sector that until now has run rogue and left a swathe of untold misery in its wake.
"Being able to exclude yourself for anywhere from three months or a lifetime gives a level of control back to the individual. BetStop, along with the customer pre-verification is an important step in reducing gambling harm."
Wesley Mission will continue to advocate for a similar independent, state-wide self-exclusion register for poker machine venues in New South Wales.
Cameron says, "We have seen public sentiment shift and reform is no longer an industry-led discussion about 'problem gamblers'. There is now a community-led discussion about a 'problem industry'.
"Our hope, here in New South Wales, is that we will have a single point platform, like BetStop, where people can exclude themselves from poker machine venues. We all know the current self-exclusion register is broken and poorly, if at all, enforced.
Australians lose more than $25 billion per year on gambling, and Australia has the highest per capita losses from online gambling in the world.
