Newcastle preview: Allan Kehoe's trio to prove the real ‘Deel'
Kehoe has three horses engaged this weekend with two proven heavy track performers in Dreamdeel and One Kind while he is confident his third runner, The Rookie, will get through it as well.
Six-year-old gelding Dreamdeel has been a model of consistency for the stable and returned this campaign in fine order with two good runs before a blip at Newcastle where he only beat one home behind Fiftyfivechevy.
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He bounced back in the best possible way with a win over Ocean Diva at Gosford on April 25.
'Every campaign he turns up and does a good job,' said Kehoe.
'He might put in a couple of shockers when he's had enough but you put him away to refresh and he goes again.
'If you take away the Newcastle run the start before where he had a bit of bad luck and we probably gassed him from the wide gate, his other three runs this preparation have been right on the mark.
'The form out of the Gosford race has stood up with the fourth horse, Rotagilla, winning on the Kensington last week and we beat it by three lengths while Ocean Diva won at Hawkesbury the next day.'
The son of Dundeel lines up in the Benchmark 68 Handicap (1850m) with apprentice Mitch Stapleford to ride him again.
'The way he acting around the stables, he is ready to bounce again,' Kehoe said.
'He has a win and two seconds from four starts at the track and distance.
'Mitch rode him very well the other day and will ride him again.
'His three kilo claim brings the horse right into this race.'
One Kind is knocking on the door after third placings at each of her three runs this time in and Kehoe expects her to play a major role in the Benchmark 64 Handicap (900m).
Following her first-up run behind Insist at Newcastle, she was beaten a neck by Dis Is Heaven at Tuncurry and a similar margin by Are Ee Que at Wyong after tough runs at her last two starts.
'She probably should have won her last two starts. She was just beaten on the line and has had no luck,' said Kehoe.
'At Tuncurry, she drew a wide gate and was no closer than five-deep the whole way and was beaten a neck. She was the only horse hitting the line.
'We walked away thinking she is flying this preparation.
'Then a Wyong, the same thing happened. The leader stacked them up and she travelled very wide again and was still only beaten on the line.'
The daughter of Sebring Sun has drawn out in gate 12 but Kehoe isn't worried by the wide draw.
'Over the 900m at Newcastle, she is better off drawn wide,' he said.
'On a wet track, I'm certain everyone will want to come wide anyway. I think the gate is a plus for her.'
Kehoe's other runner is The Rookie in the Midway 2YO Maiden Plate (900m).
The daughter of Pierro won her Wyong trial on a heavy track in good fashion on April 24 before a fourth-up fourth to Yes Siree here on May 1.
'I probably got it wrong by running her at Wyong. I should have been going into this race first-up,' he said.
'On the positive side, it tightened her up and gave her a bit more race experience.
'I think we will see her really run through the line. I've got a big opinion of her.'
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News.com.au
8 minutes ago
- News.com.au
‘Rising NRL star' proves Roosters don't need ‘crazy' Daly-Cherry Evans deal
The Roosters don't need Daly Cherry-Evans. That much was clear as they demolished the Dolphins 64-12 on Saturday night to claim a 10th win of the season and keep their finals hopes alive. Spencer Leniu triggered a snap four-man sin bin after he saw red mist and wanted to throw hands. But the Roosters composed themselves to blow the Dolphins off the park on the back of a dominant effort by their forwards and some clinical finishing. James Tedesco had another superb game to surely sew up his second Dally M Medal, while coach Trent Robinson would have been ecstatic by the performance of his young halves Sam Walker and Hugo Savala. Walker hasn't skipped a beat since returning from his ACL injury and he showed off his has his trademark spontaneity in attack on Saturday, typified by his tactical pause before throwing a cut-out pass to Daniel Tupou for an easy try. Walker's talent has been well known but the emergence of Savala this season has been a revelation for the Tricolours. The 194cm five-eighth looks silky smooth every time he touches the ball and his kicking game has proved a bonus for the Roosters — his pinpoint kicks to the corner set up Mark Nawaqanitawase for two tries against the Dolphins. 'Savala put in a five-cent piece,' Fox League commentator Warren Smith said, describing Savala as a 'rising star of the competition'. 'Savala is playing his hand beautifully,' Michael Ennis added. Savala has only played 16 games but it's hard to imagine Robinson not picking the 23-year-old anytime soon, but halves selection could soon prove a headache for Robbo. Chad Townsend has announced his retirement, but the Roosters could soon have two quality playmakers sitting in reserve grade if Cherry-Evans joins the glamour club as expected next season. The 36-year-old Manly veteran is yet to officially make a call on his future after announcing he wouldn't be playing at the Sea Eagles beyond 2025. Cherry-Evans told last month there was 'no update' on his next destination and he was focused on helping Manly secure a spot in the top eight. But it's widely expected Cherry-Evans will join the Roosters on a one-year deal, with recent reports he will play five-eighth alongside Walker before transitioning into a coaching role in 2027. The Roosters want Cherry-Evans to be the final piece of the premiership puzzle, like Cooper Cronk was in the 2018-19 glory years. But the success of this year's debutants and their home grown brigade of players like Walker, Savala, Robert Toia and Benaiah Iuoe suggests the Roosters might not need a high profile recruit like DCE to get them over the hump. Giving Cherry-Evans the No. 6 jersey would likely relegate Savala and Sandon Smith to reserve grade, which would be a waste of talent and could invite overtures from rival clubs. The reaction on social media to Walker and Savala's performance against the Dolphins summed it up. Veteran rugby league reporter Phil Rothfield wrote on X: 'Starting to think DCE might be playing NSW Cup for the Chooks.' One fan wrote on social media: 'I hope the Roosters haven't signed DCE for next season. Him standing in the way of Hugo Savala playing regular football would be a disgrace.' A second said: 'Signing Daly Cherry Evans is the dumbest signing considering they've got this young gun Savala playing so well.' A third commented: 'Tell me why we signed Daly Cherry-Evans again. The future is right there. Hugo Savala. Sam Walker.' A fourth said: 'Still crazy that Savala will probably be dropped to the bench for 37-year-old DCE next year.' Another urged the Roosters to 'sign Savala to a lifetime deal'. The Dolphins were without Herbie Farnworth and a host of first choice forwards, but putting 64 points on them will surely make the NRL's premiership contenders wary of facing the Roosters if they make finals. This season was supposed to be a write-off for the Roosters, but they have certainly unearthed some gems and could have a part to play in finals.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
'The f***ing love of the game'
AFLW arrived like a freight train in 2017, changing Australian rules football forever. Photographs have told its story and challenged the status quo. Some blurry, black and white images exist of women playing Australian rules football in the early years. In one, women run at the ball, the fabric of their knee-length skirts flapping behind them. The photograph was taken in Adelaide in 1918. What's striking about it today is not women playing footy, it's how they must have struggled in those clothes. Women playing football on Jubilee Oval, Adelaide. A fund raising game played on 21 September 1918. ( Supplied: State Library of South Australia ) "The word that keeps coming to mind is ill-fitting," Dr Emma Phillips says. Before sports uniforms were cut for women's bodies ill-fitting clothes contributed to the idea that women were ill-fit for sport, Phillips, an assistant professor of visual communication at the University of Canberra, says. Phillips played Australian rules at an amateur level. In an era she calls "the long years". Before 2017 when the AFL launched its national women's league, the AFLW. Before most people knew that women's football existed. She has watched the popularity of women's sport explode. How it is represented has changed too. Photographs of female athletes generally used to fall into two categories: sexualised or trivialised — thankfully that's no longer the case, she says. But photographs of women and non-binary athletes playing footy still reckon with so much. Anne Hatchard of the Crows (front) marks under pressure from Ruby Schleicher of the Magpies during the AFLW Round 4 match between the Collingwood Magpies and the Adelaide Crows at Victoria Park in Melbourne, Sunday, September 18, 2022. (AAP Image/Hamish Blair) ( AAP: Hamish Blair ) Photographs have documented AFLW's most essential moments. Adelaide Crows (L to R) Captain Chelsea Randall, coach Bec Goddard and co-Captain Erin Phillips hold the trophy aloft as they celebrate winning the AFLW Grand Final game against Brisbane Lions at Metricon Stadium in Carrara on the Gold Coast, Saturday, March 25, 2017. ( AAP: Dan Peled ) The joy of winning. Elise Barwick of the Suns is stretchered from the field injured during the AFLW Round 9 match between the Gold Coast Suns and the GWS Giants at Heritage Bank Stadium on the Gold Coast, Friday, October 27, 2023. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt) NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY ( AAP: Dave Hunt ) The heartache of injury. Deni Varnhagen of the Crows celebrates with team mates after scoring a goal during the AFLW round 4 match between the GWS Giants and the Adelaide Crows at Manuka Oval in Canberra, Saturday, September 23, 2023. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) ( AAP: Lukas Coch ) The camaraderie of a team. Sophie Conway (right) of the Lions celebrates kicking a goal with Isabel Dawes (left) during the AFLW Round 4 match between the Brisbane Lions and the Western Bulldogs at Brighton Homes Arena, Wednesday, September 18, 2024 ( AAP: Darren England ) But photographs have also challenged assumptions of how women should look and behave. They have been attacked and derided. Brianna Davey of Collingwood (centre) leads teammates out during the AFLW Round 2 match between the Collingwood Magpies and the Hawthorn Hawks at Victoria Park on Saturday, September 7, 2024. ( AAP: Joel Carrett ) And they have celebrated what was ignored for too long. Eight years ago, 24,000 people filed into a suburban oval in Melbourne on a balmy February evening to watch the first game of AFLW. "It literally sends a shiver down your spine to see this, the welcoming in of women's football," an ABC Radio commentator murmured as Collingwood and Carlton, two of the league's oldest rivals, waited for an umpire to signal the start of the game by raising a neon-yellow egg-shaped ball in the air. The match came 121 years after the men's league was founded, and 159 years after two of Melbourne's elite private schools competed in what's believed to be the first organised game of Australian rules football. The following year, on the northern side of the Barassi Line — an imaginary border separating Australia's preference for rugby and Australian rules — the NRL formed a women's league. An enthralling sport of fierce tackles and elegant, gravity-defying leaps that requires the mastering of a ball so unpredictable it appears to have a mind of its own, Australia's own game is derived from rugby and according to some is also influenced by Gaelic football and an Aboriginal game — others say this is "a seductive myth". Outside the stadium at the first game in 2017, the AFL's then-chief executive Gillon McLachlan haplessly apologised to fans who were locked outside of the sold-out match. Excluding the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, it was the largest crowd ever assembled in Australia to watch a women's-only sporting event. (That record is now held by the Australian Women's Cricket Team who attracted 86,000 to the MCG in 2020 and likely would have been beaten by the Matildas had they been able to play at the MCG during the 2023 Women's World Cup.) In 2019, Geelong's Georgie Rankin is photographed running into the open arms of young girls in the grandstand. It beautifully encapsulates the "you can't be what you can't see" motto, Phillips says. But she also sees something darker: a hidden weight to the elation of the girls waiting to receive their hero. Georgie Rankin of the Cats celebrates with fans during the 2019 season. ( Michael Willson/) Phillips, who used to be a professional photographer, has recently conducted research embedded with the Greater Western Sydney Giants AFLW team and the Canberra A-League women's soccer team. She explored how players represented themselves through photography on social media and found that front of mind was the health of the game and a pressure to present an overly positive image. She calls this "legacy pressure". "I always get this sense that things are precarious," Phillips says. "With negative images in the media about financial loss or lack of strategic plan and of course their pay is far from what the male players earn… there is this sense that at any moment those key stakeholders could rip the carpet out from underneath them." This week, the 10th season of AFLW will begin. The milestone comes within nine years because two seasons were played in 2022 after the competition was moved from summer to winter. The change was an experiment to "give the AFLW the best chance to shine", AFL football operations manager Andrew Dillon said in 2022. "As has been customary with AFLW for a long time, players and staff agreed to the changes with a fair dose of goodwill, up-ending and putting lives on hold for the greater good and growth of the competition," Kate O'Hallaran wrote at the time. As Rankin celebrates with the young fans, Phillips sees a player who is conscious "to make sure that she has the game in good shape for all those young girls to come through". Lions fans show their support during the AFLW Grand Final match between North Melbourne Tasmania Kangaroos and Brisbane Lions at Ikon Park, on December 03, 2023, in Melbourne, Australia. ( Getty Images: Josh Chadwick ) Melbourne fans at the Round 2 AFLW match between Collingwood and Melbourne at Victoria Park in Melbourne on February 9, 2019. ( AAP: David Crosling ) Danielle Ponter celebrates with Eloise Jones of the Adelaide Crows after scoring a goal during the AFLW Grand Final match between the Adelaide Crows and Carlton Blues at the Adelaide Oval on March 31, 2019. ( AAP: David Mariuz, file photo ) Fremantle AFLW star Mim Strom celebrates with fans. ( Supplied: Fremantle ) "I'm never going to be an athlete, and I'm never going to be a football player, that's not my journey," Dr Kasey Symons says. Footy-mad Symons is a fan. Her childhood was marked by the Saturday afternoon ritual of country football, and when she moved to Melbourne ("the city of footy" as she calls it) her fandom intensified. Symons is a lecturer of communication sports media at Deakin University. She researches sport fans' experiences, particularly from a gender perspective. She says some of the most important AFLW photographs are the ones that point a lens at the grandstand, capturing the people and culture that sustain women's footy. AFLW has been promoted to young women as something to aspire to, Symons says. And why not? It's a positive message that encourages sports participation. 'We know there's a huge drop out of girls when they reach their teenage years and they disappear from sport.' But that messaging excludes others, she says. 'We don't talk about older women. We don't talk about gender diverse folk. We don't talk about adult fans. We don't talk about the social benefits of women's sports and community building – which is such an important story of the women's sports space.' People are coming to AFLW through non-traditional pathways, Symons says. Her latest research is looking at sports romance literature as an entrée to sport. Sports romance is a genre on the rise, where authors "create narratives that reflect their own experiences and identity or contribute perspectives they feel are missing in the sporting landscape," Symons wrote in The Conversation recently. Symons has identified a handful of AFLW sports romance books. Given how few books have been written about the AFLW that's not insignificant, she argues. Many have queer narratives, which is important given "the queer community is so foundational to the AFLW, as well as most women's sport," she says. Many of the sport's biggest names are queer. Which is where "you can't be what you can't see" takes on another meaning. Symons says Hawthorn star Tilly Lucas Rodd sharing their experience of top surgery with ABC Sport's Marnie Vinall was extremely powerful. Hawthorn star Tilly Lucas-Rodd had gender affirming top surgery. ( ABC News: Anthony Furci ) "When people see an athlete being so open about their identity and the process that they're going through to claim their authentic selves, the power that that has on someone who is going through something similar is just immeasurable." The educational aspect of sharing this lived experience is so important, Symons says. But there's an emotional labour to this which she says often goes un-celebrated in women's sport. The photographer Megan Brewer began following women's football the year before the AFLW was launched. "A lot of the mainstream media wasn't around in the way that they are now," Brewer says. She volunteered countless hours on the boundary line ("the best seat in the house") to capture the seemingly endless historic "firsts" that were being created in women's footy. "I was wanting to record those moments for the women playing and their families." As the league evolved, she was driven by a desire to showcase what the athletes could do on the field. Paxy Paxman of Melbourne in 2022. ( Supplied: Megan Brewer / Siren Sports ) Geelong's Mel Hickey at the AFLW season launch in 2019. ( Supplied: Megan Brewer / Siren Sports ) Players compete in a ruck contest in 2023. ( Spullied: Megan Brewer / Siren Sport ) Brewer can't pick out a favourite image she's taken. She's proud of the archive in its totality, as a record of the early years of the AFLW and the people who brought it to life, on and off the field. Her photographs, shared on Instagram, challenge the traditional presentation of female athletes "styled in a dress and holding sporting equipment", Brewer says. She says players appreciated seeing themselves in action shots. These photos don't conform to the "patriarchal idea of what female athletes should look like" she says. "I think that sort of action and injury imagery has really challenged people in ways they didn't know they needed to be challenged." "Of course I'm going to say Tayla Harris, that's just obvious," Phillips says. The 2019 photograph of Harris, airborne and resolute, is probably the most well-known and definitely most discussed in the AFLW's lifespan. The photo attracted a torrent of derogatory and sexual comments when it was published online by Channel 7. Harris said: "That is what I would consider sexual abuse on social media." "It's such a turning point in so many ways for the game and women's sport in this country," Phillips says. Harris forced the nation, and Channel 7 — which initially deleted the photo rather than deal with the trolls and the misogyny festering on its social media accounts — to engage in a conversation about the sexualisation of women athletes' bodies and misogyny, she says. "It doesn't mean everything is good now, but it's definitely better." Tayla Harris of the Blues kicks a goal during the 2019 season. ( Photo by Michael Willson/) Despite all the advances she's seen since the AFLW was founded, the patriarchy is "still the number one stakeholder" when it comes to how players and fans encounter the game, Phillips says. "Whether that means they have to have long hair, whether that means they have to smile more, whether that means they have to temper something that they do in order to make sure they don't lose that contract or lose the game itself." AFL Chief Photographer Michael Wilson told ABC Arts he knew the photograph was special as soon as he looked through the viewfinder. "She's at her highest elevation and I thought, What an amazing action picture of a female athlete, just going about her craft." It didn't cross his mind that the photograph would be trolled. Author Sam George-Allen likened the reaction to the photo of Harris to historical responses to witchcraft and the idea that female power is aberrant. "That kind of response that's either sexualising or putting down, that's an attempt to put someone in their place — that place being not in AFL," she told ABC. O'Hallaran reminded us that the trolling of female athletes was widespread, and Harris was not the only AFLW player to have a photo taken offline because of abuse. Eventually, Harris's kick was immortalised in bronze. "Everyone has a right to do what they love," Harris said when the statue was unveiled. "That's what I want people to see when they look at this." Madison Prespakis celebrates a goal during the 2024 season. () Maddy Prespakis's goal celebration in 2024 sparked another conversation about trolling. "We all know when a footballer pulls up their shirt and points to their stomach, that is a powerful symbol, it has a powerful history," ABC Radio's Raf Epstein told listeners at the time. Epstein was of course referring to the iconic image of Nicky Winmar standing up against the racist abuse he and other Indigenous players were subjected to. Prespakis, who has spoken openly about her struggles with body image, was reportedly pointing to her stomach in response to the body shaming she'd been subjected to online. "I think she's saying, 'I'm beautiful, this is who I am, and bugger off'," broadcaster, footy commentator and proud First Nations woman Shelly Ware told Epstein. Sarah Perkins, who was also a target of body-shaming abuse during her playing career, told The Guardian that she had reached out to Prespakis: "To remind her that she is a strong and powerful athlete, and she's perfect the way that she is, because the way that she plays footy is exactly the way that her body allows her to be, and she's one of the best footballers in our game." Perkins played 40 games across eight seasons, and was an unlikely hero in Adelaide's 2017 premiership winning team after she was overlooked by all Victorian clubs. That year she kicked 11 goals across eight games. Her goal celebrations were glorious. Arms outstretched, eyes up, legs planted firmly in the ground as if to say I am here and there is nowhere else I should be. In footy parlance, Ebony Marinoff is in and under, she puts her body on the line and gives 110 per cent. Every single week. Symons says the photo of a blood-soaked Marinoff leaving the field made a lot of people uncomfortable and fuelled conversations about women playing contact sport. It's an argument infamously articulated by former player and coach and now ABC Radio commentator Mick Malthouse in 2018 when he called for AFLW to be modified to remove tackling and heavy bumping to reduce injuries because of the experience of women in his family. "I don't say you shouldn't play it," he told ABC. "I say I don't like it." Ebony Marinoff of the Crows leaves the ground bleeding during the 2018 season. ( Sean Garnsworthy/) Symons says it's a complicated image because she doesn't want "to romanticise injuries in sport". But injuries are a part of sport and "we don't want to create a narrative where we need to put bubble wrap around these women athletes". "Marinoff is one of the most exceptional players that we've had in this competition since day dot. I think for her to unapologetically… [say] 'yeah, I get hurt and I keep playing, this is what we do' is great." The Office for Women in Sport and Recreation's annual report into the representation of women in sports news coverage found that in 2023-24 women were less likely to be depicted in images showing action than male athletes. They were also less likely to be depicted in portrait images. Sabrina Frederick of the Tigers during the Round 7 AFLW match between the Gold Coast Suns and Richmond Tigers at Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast, Friday, March 12, 2021. ( AAP: Dave Hunt ) Dakota Davidson of the Lions celebrates kicking a goal during the AFLW Preliminary Final match between the Brisbane Lions and the Adelaide Crows at Brighton Homes Arena in Brisbane, Saturday, November 23, 2024. ( AAP: Jason O'Brien ) Amanda Farrugia of the Giants is tackled by Emma Humphries of the Kangaroos during the Round 2 AFLW match between the GWS Giants and the Kangaroos at Drummoyne Oval in Sydney on February 8, 2019. ( AAP: Dan Himbrechts, file photo ) Dr Adele Pavlidis, the Director of the Griffiths Centre for Social and Cultural Research, says when the AFLW started it was marketed in a celebratory light that pushed an acceptable femininity. "I feel like the media team were trying to hedge their bets a little bit — you know, we are going to do AFLW but the players are going to be beautiful, they're going to be smiling and they're going to be nice," Pavlidis says. There was a lot of what she calls "white women smiling" — a reference to the title of a study she co-authored analysing media representations of female athletes at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. "We still have far to go if we are to embrace women in their multiplicity — and to recognise that women can be strong, capable, butch, femme, and varied in their range of expressions of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity," the authors wrote. Pavlidis believes she's witnessed a shift in how the sport is marketed to show a seriousness to the athletes and more diversity. "Whether that be short hair, long hair, different ethnicities," she says. "I do think that having these different depictions, more in line with reality, the public is learning that femininity, that being a woman, is not a single set of traits. It's not nice, happy, kind, attractive, beautiful." The impact of these images in the public sphere is immense, she says. "These are teaching us what we already know, deep down, that these qualities they don't belong to particular bodies as they're gendered and that women and non-binary people, they can have all sorts of qualities." Erin Phillips and wife Tracy Gahan kiss after Phillips was announced as the inaugural AFLW Best and Fairest winner in 2017. ( Michael Willson/) When Erin Phillips won the league's inaugural best and fairest award and was photographed kissing her wife, Pavlidis says it was historic. It normalised same-sex relationships within the context of AFLW. 'It's been amazing. The AFLW has done what AFL has not been able to do by embracing all of its players." Phillips has given the game so much. The three-time premiership player, triple All-Australian, dual League Best and Fairest and one of the first women inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame showed everyone what was possible. She retired early from professional basketball for the opportunity to play AFLW. "I just wanted to do something that brought joy back into me being an athlete," she recently told The Guardian. Erin Phillips made an emotional speech when inducted into the Hall of Fame, thanking her father for teaching her the game, despite knowing at the time she couldn't play it professionally. ( AAP: David Mariuz ) Emma Phillips says the stories that surround women's footy are wonderful. But we shouldn't lose sight of what happens on that green grass over four quarters of football. "I think we do the players and the game a great disservice by [only] focusing on a narrative that is beyond just the f***ing love of the game." In photographs, players brace for the crunch about to come. Their bodies are yet to hit the ground, the ball is yet to be marked, the siren is yet to sound. Maybe there is time for one more goal to win the game. Anything is possible. Credits Words: Rhiannon Stevens Editing: Catherine Taylor Photographs: Getty Images, AAP, Megan Brewer / Siren Sport, State Library of South Australia, ABC News Images: Lindsay Dunbar
News.com.au
7 hours ago
- News.com.au
Mark Kempster had a problem one in four young blokes are going through, now he's waging war against Australia's fastest growing crisis
The day of the 2020 AFL Grand Final was a special treat for sports betting enthusiasts. The Cox Plate had collided with the MCG showdown in a punter's dream. It was also a bookmaker's dream. Untold millions would flow into the pockets of Australia's biggest sports betting enterprises as thousands loaded up multis and trifectas. For Mark Kempster, it was a day that changed him forever. Not solely because he lost $5,000, but because it became the catalyst for a change he knew was needed to keep his life from totally falling apart. That night, his partner scrolled through his phone and saw the full extent of his addiction. 'It was my rock bottom,' Kempster told 'I was a shell of myself. Angry, bitter. I'd gone from a young bloke who loved sport, loved life, to someone who hated himself. And I still couldn't stop.' He hasn't placed a single bet since that night. But he knows plenty of men in Australia are stuck in the same dark and seemingly inescapable pit he was in just five years ago. 'A casino in your pocket' To say sports betting in Australia has exploded over the past decade would be an understatement. In just five years, the number of Australians betting on sports has more than doubled, from about 7 per cent before the pandemic to 15.5 per cent by March 2024. Among young men, the numbers are even higher. One in four men aged 18–24 is now a regular punter, despite the crippling cost of living crisis that's hitting them hard. In the 25–34 bracket, it's one in three. Nearly 18 per cent of that cohort are classified as problem gamblers, meaning those who show a tendency to choose gambling over necessities like food and rent. While civil libertarians may argue gambling comes under the same umbrella as entertainment, and that a very small percentage of the pool of active gamblers are actually ruining their lives, the reality is that we're in uncharted waters when compared to the history of punting. It's is an entirely new breed of gambling built for the smartphone era. 'When I started, it was just a couple of us at the pub after footy,' Kempster says. 'But once gambling apps landed on our phones, it was over. I had 10 or 12 apps in the first year. Suddenly you could bet anywhere, anytime. No one saw it, no one knew. It just snowballed.' Sports betting among young adults is rising at an annual growth rate of forty per cent, according to the Alliance for Gambling Reform's CEO Martin Thomas. 'What we finding is there is a massive surge in sports betting, using your phone,' he told 'All the advertising is trying to make it part of your peer group and socially acceptable. I think that's probably driving the growth. 'Roy Morgan did some research that looked at the rate of online sports betting among 18- to 24-year-olds and it showed that already out of those people like one in four would be developing a gambling problem from sports betting, and the rate of sports betting growth is something like 40 per cent year on year. 'Poker machine growth is around 6 per cent year on year, so it's taking off with a rocket and I think some of the implications of that people potentially aren't going to casinos as much because they're sitting around a pub, betting with mates on their phone. 'Everyone really carries a casino around in their pocket.' Australia's hidden addiction Unlike the pokies, sports betting doesn't have the same visible shame. Any one of your mates could be struggling to fight their urges and plonk their pay cheque down every month. But unless they come to you for help, it's likely you'd never have a clue just how deep they've gone. 'There's a stigma around gambling addiction, but it's worse with sports betting because it's invisible,' Mark Kempster says. 'You can sit in your bedroom on your phone, betting on horses, on the footy, and no one knows. There's no physical change like with drugs or alcohol. You just become this … robot. 'It was comforting, in a weird way. I'd look forward to Saturday all week. I'd plan my whole day around it. Noon to six, the house was mine, my partner was working, my son was little. I'd shut everyone out. Just me, the races, the multis. It was the only thing I cared about.' Even when Mark knew he was addicted, he justified it by resigning to the fact that it was 'just who I was'. 'I'd tell myself, 'This is my money, I work hard, I deserve this.' But towards the end, I wasn't even enjoying it. It was just who I was. I thought I'd never get out.' 'Can't just watch a game anymore' Kempster says the embedding of gambling culture into Australia's youth is taken for granted. As a nation, we have simply become accustomed to putting on the footy and seeing a barrage of messages encouraging you to punt. 'You can't just watch a game anymore without being told you should bet on it,' Kempster says. 'That's what really got me. I loved sport. But over time, I felt like I had to bet on it. I couldn't just enjoy it.' Now, five years clean, the Tasmanian local speaks publicly and lobbies Parliament to rein in the industry. He's also sponsoring dozens of young men who reached out after hearing his story. 'They message me saying, 'That's me. I can't stop.' I know exactly how they feel. I had no one to relate to when I was going through it, so I talk. I say yes to every interview. If my voice stops even one bloke from going down the same road, it's worth it.' Australia is inching toward reform with talk of stricter ad bans, penalties for influencers promoting offshore bookmakers are climbing into the millions. But for now, the taps are still open, and the money is still flowing. 'There's definitely a place for gambling in Australia. But not like this,' Kempster said. 'Not where it's in your face 24/7, not where an entire generation of young blokes think they can't just watch sport anymore without a punt. 'That's how it gets you. Not all at once. Bit by bit, until you don't even recognise yourself.'
