{"id":581125,"date":"2026-08-03T02:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T02:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/581125\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T02:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T02:36:11","slug":"luke-bateman-tells-inquiry-gambling-companies-supplied-him-with-cocaine-and-alcohol-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/581125\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Bateman tells inquiry gambling companies supplied him with cocaine and alcohol | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former rugby league star Luke Bateman has alleged gambling company promoters supplied him with cocaine and alcohol, telling a parliamentary inquiry the betting industry exercised no duty of care.<\/p>\n

Bateman, who is now a TikTok star and influential in the \u201cBookTok\u201d community<\/a>, told the inquiry on Monday morning he attended a private Gold Coast event hosted by a gambling company at which senior figures took illicit drugs with clients.<\/p>\n

He called on the Albanese government to go further in its plans to limit gambling advertising, saying vulnerable people needed tougher protections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were times where I would be flown interstate and taken to race days, put in marquees with alcohol and food provided all day, things like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore getting there, your VIP manager would [say], \u2018Hey, mate, what drugs do you want? Do you want a couple bags for this weekend?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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The 31-year-old told the inquiry that VIP account managers for gambling companies sent him personalised betting inducements including so-called \u201cbonus bets\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember when I went to an exclusive event through a betting company, that was hosted in a rental on the canals of the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire sort of C-suite of the company was there, all the management team, administration, and they were sort of all in a back room doing drugs together, and I was out in this room doing drugs with all of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is like the CEO, the founders, the VIP managers. And at that stage \u2026 I would have been a 23-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put my hand up, I was a willing participant of that, [but] these are men in positions of power with influence who should be looking out for your welfare, and this is the kind of behavior that they are drawing you into, encouraging you into, and coaxing you into and normalising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bateman was earning $400,000 a year but had no money, with his losses leading to debts of more than $250,000.<\/p>\n

He estimates he lost about $1m due to his gambling addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s absolutely zero duty of care, absolute zero care for you as a human. There\u2019s zero care for your well-being, for your mental state. Absolutely nothing of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anti-gambling campaigner Tim Costello alleged to the hearing TAB and Sportsbet, as well as Sydney\u2019s Star casino, offered one problem gambler drugs, escorts and free accommodation.<\/p>\n

The man has been charged over illegal activities and is currently detained in Sydney\u2019s Silverwater prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was given free accommodation at Star casino. He had to leave each week so they could technically say he wasn\u2019t living there and come back the next morning.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was the TAB\u2019s biggest customer in that time. They were giving him $50,000 bonus bets. He was also Sportsbet\u2019s biggest customer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were flying him to grand finals. They were offering him escorts, drugs, whatever he wanted. He was doing turnover of more than $20m a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is very distressed, having been brought up in a church family, about the disgrace to his family and to himself, and that\u2019s why he\u2019ll be pleading guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives of Racing NSW and Racing Victoria will also appear, along with the Lottery Office chief executive, Jaclyn Wood.<\/p>\n

The Albanese government\u2019s legislation will cap the number of gambling ads broadcast each hour and ban gambling advertising during live matches.<\/p>\n

Critics say the plan falls well short of the total ban proposed by late Labor MP Peta Murphy in a landmark report into gambling harm.<\/p>\n

Liberal MP Simon Kennedy, who has advocated for the Coalition to go further than Labor with tougher new gambling limits, said Bateman\u2019s story was a reality check.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prime minister\u2019s gambling reforms protected the use of predatory VIP gambling inducements instead of protecting Australians from them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven Labor\u2019s own national conference has recognised this needs to be addressed. Why won\u2019t the prime minister listen?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former rugby league star Luke Bateman has alleged gambling company promoters supplied him with cocaine and alcohol, telling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-581125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}