Meta is serving Australians ads on Facebook and Instagram that promote illegal online casinos, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority says the current law leaves it unable to penalise the company. The Sydney Morning Herald said the ads are reaching millions of Australians and include spoof sites, direct links and so-called social casinos.
The promotions range from poker machine apps, roulette simulators and blackjack games to websites that mimic established brands such as Crown Melbourne and Star. The spoof operators are based in places ranging from European Union states to Curacao, and some ads appear as fake smartphone apps that act as browser shortcuts to the illegal sites. These sites do not face the harm-minimisation warnings required of registered gambling companies, and the reporting says it is not an offence for individuals to access offshore-registered operators that advertise to Australians.
As reported earlier this month, regulators were already chasing a surge of gambling-influencer videos on Instagram and TikTok, and only one creator had been disciplined. ACMA says it is actively looking at a number of influencers, has asked platforms to remove posts, and warned that individuals who promote illegal online gambling can face civil penalties of up to $59,400, while those who facilitate access through hyperlinks can risk penalties of up to $2.475 million.
The bottleneck is a legal test. An ACMA spokesman said the regulator needs to be satisfied that, where ads appear on websites, the majority of the people accessing the site are physically present in Australia before it can make an advertising breach finding. For now, ACMA can only ask Meta to remove offending content voluntarily.
That is why the gambling reforms now before parliament matter. The Herald reports they would widen ACMA’s reach so it could act if an offending ad is merely accessible to an Australian user. The government introduced the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and a related levy bill on 2 July, with the broader package due to start on 1 January 2027.
Meta did not address the legality question in detail, but said tackling sophisticated criminal networks requires co-ordinated action across the ecosystem, from domain registrars and hosting providers to regulators with the power to block illegal gambling websites. It said it had disabled ad accounts tied to spoofing known legal gambling brands and was continuing to investigate, while also saying it removed more than 159 million scam ads globally last year.
Campaigners argue the company already has the tools to do more. Lauren Levin of the Gambling Policy Hub said Meta filters illegal ads in Ireland and Indonesia to meet local laws, and described the Australian feed as “the wild west”. Charles Livingstone of Monash University said illegal sites have exploded in recent months and that Meta reacts quickly to copyright complaints from major brands. The Office of Impact Analysis says gambling harm is a major public health concern, Australians lose over $32 billion a year on legal gambling, and the preferred ad-reform option would deliver an estimated net benefit of $107.1 million a year. Meta posted $US196 billion in ad revenue in 2025 and is forecast to take about $US240 billion in 2026.
