Quest West

What is Quest West?

“The time was right to reassess this crucial policy area, focusing on the topic of gambling advertising where the former committee’s strong recommendations have been largely unaddressed and where substantial developments in the gambling advertising landscape since 2020 have demanded a re-evaluation of the policy options,” he said.

The committee has advocated for applying a public health framework to gambling advertising regulation. It criticised the existing patchwork of self-regulation, noting the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) codes, co-regulation for broadcasts and industry-led voluntary measures, were inadequate.

Instead, the report recommended that advertising regulation be placed on a statutory footing under the Gambling Commission. 

What is Quest West?

That is because trading on prediction markets is illegal down under, according to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, the nation’s regulator on financial services. Last month, in perhaps the ASIC’s strongest warnings yet against the asset class, the commission reiterated that prediction markets are not licensed as financial markets to operate in Australia. Through the guidance, the regulator urged consumers to exercise caution before partaking in certain investments on offshore platforms which have not obtained licensing nationwide.

The advisory could be music to the ears of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, whose league has pushed a federal derivatives regulator in the US to enact more rigorous standards to help protect the integrity of professional sports. Ahead of the matchup, Goodell spoke with CNBC from Melbourne.

“We think there needs to be stronger regulations into the predictive markets,” he said. “We want to see that to protect the integrity of our game – we want to make sure we are protecting the consumers that are on those platforms.”

What is Quest West?

“Unregulated is not illegal,” he asserted. “We will continue to support those markets that we believe over time will become regulated.

“Our investment is going into regulated markets, and yes over time we will likely consider pulling out of certain markets. I think Playtech has done a very good job, [regulated revenues] are more than 85%.”

Meanwhile its B2C revenue, which took a significant hit last year as it offloaded the majority of its B2C operations, including Snaitech and Happy Bet, declined 22% to €32 million.