The AFL has told its official gambling partner Sportsbet to stop featuring its high-profile athletes in AI-generated social media content without their permission.
Sportsbet has also been ordered to remove AI videos featuring AFL stars delivering lines from films, TV shows or speeches to react to real events.
The videos were age-restricted and designed to increase Sportsbet’s social media presence as a proposition for new audiences and customers.
The videos were released despite the federal government banning athletes from appearing in gambling ads. The new rules will come into effect next year.
One recent AI-powered video featured former Brisbane Lions premiership player Lachie Neale accepting the award at his new club Collingwood. Sportsbet manipulated his image to show him mimicking American rapper Snoop Dogg’s 2018 Hollywood Walk of Fame star acceptance speech.
“Finally, I want to say thank you,” Neale said in the AI-generated video. “I want to thank you for believing in me. I want to thank you for doing all this hard work.”
Another AI-generated video features Brisbane Lions player Will Ashcroft. “If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to kill me,” the duo shouted a line from the Norm Smith award-winning TV show Ozark.
Sportsbet suggested it was Ashcroft’s response to playing Fremantle in the final quarter of the 2026 AFL grand final at Wharfie Time.
The videos were removed from its Instagram page on Tuesday afternoon, after Guardian Australia contacted Sportsbet.
The gambling company also created AI content using images of Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell and former North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson.
Although the videos were meant to be humorous, the AFL Players Association (AFLPA) said it was not impressed.
The AFLPA, which operates as a trade union, sent the league a letter of concern late last week. It argued the videos breached the collective bargaining agreement between the players and the AFL, which restricted how their images could be used by the league’s partners.
Alex Taverner, the association’s general manager of legal affairs, said: “AI-generated player images are not permitted without the players’ permission.”
“We raised this with the AFL and advocated for both the removal of the content and an end to the use of AI-generated images and views of players without their consent.
“Importantly, the AFL will now work with Sportsbet to remove the content.”
An AFL spokesman said it would “continue to work closely with our partners on the use of AI content and will continue to do so as the technology develops”.
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A Sportsbet spokesman said the company “always develops content that entertains fans and supports engagement with sport”.
“We are listening to our partners’ feedback and responding accordingly,” the spokesperson said.
“We continue to work with the AFL on the evolving use of AI in our content, taking into account partner feedback and community expectations.”
The 2023-2027 collective bargaining agreement allows Sportsbet to use player images and views without permission, but only under certain circumstances and with restrictions. The contract does not mention artificial intelligence.
Independent ACT senator David Pocock, a former professional athlete with a focus on the gambling industry and AI, said the case highlighted the need for tougher regulation.
“The use of artificial intelligence to create images of elite athletes without their consent to promote harmful gambling products and attempt to gain social licence, exposes the problems with the behavior of gambling companies, as well as the lack of deep fraud safeguards,” Pocock said.
Dr Mark Johnson, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney who studies social media influencers and gambling, said Sportsbet could have been more careful.
“The most likely explanation is that someone at Sportsbet acted without thinking and never stopped to consider that the pictures of the athletes themselves are often an element of brands and ownership,” Johnson said.