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A mini community furore was unleashed over a four metre advertising cube that briefly appeared at Sydney’s Central Park Mall to promote gambling.
Once award winning and celebrated as an example of best practice in sustainability, Sydney’s Central Park, located at the southern tip of the CBD near the Central Tech Precinct, has hit the headlines again for all the wrong reasons. Forget falling planter boxes or lack of fireproof cladding, this is a whole new level of money grabbing mechanising gambling advertising. A huge electronic four-metre square cube, designed to dominate the environment according to VMO (part of the Hoyts Group), the company responsible for the monstrosity, having recently secured the exclusive right to advertise in the park.
VMO makes no secret of its dominance in the outdoor retail advertising space, proudly announcing in October 2025 that it hit a milestone of over 530 of these “retail” advertisement hubs in Australia, with more growth planned in 2026.
Although it is not the only company to clog our public spaces such as footpaths, bus stops, and now parks with electronic advertising junk, it aims to be the biggest. Securement of the high profile Central Park Mall, near Central Railway Station for both indoor and outdoor advertising purposes is evidence of its ambition.
According to the Outdoor Media Association (OMA), an advocacy body for the regulation of “out of home” advertisement and digital technologies in Australia, the growth of these outdoor smart screens is a social asset.
But before you dismiss this as a small annoyance of modern life and smart city advancement and discourse – because yes, technology as a tool within urban planning and its provision does have advantages – read on and see if you’re not rethinking those mirrored sunglasses buried in the back of the wardrobe.
Putting aside for a second the offensiveness of a gambling advertisement on repeat in a family friendly park, as if that is not problematic enough, it’s worth noting audience data capture mechanisms that VMO describes on its website.
We’re not saying this mechanism was used in this instance but “premium advertisement screens”, as the company describes them, are not a one-way communication channel.
According to the company’s website, its “dart” platform has the capacity for real time monitoring of audience engagement and profiling with an accuracy of 95 per cent, including age, mood and moustache status.
Recognising known gambling harms, the NSW government has taken several steps over recent years to lessen opportunities for gambling advertising across the public realm and removed them from public transport advertising assets and other associated amenities.
The department said in 2025 that it was working with pubs, clubs and local businesses to reduce the potential cycle of message to action in relation to gambling access.
More recently, on 12 May this year, the federal government released its own set of planned regulations to restrict gambling advertisements.
However, none of these government measures is currently relevant to privately funded advertisement screens on privately owned land, such as the portion of Central Park where this eyesore sits.
In theory, in order for this or any electronic signage to be placed for commercial gain in the public realm or in public view across Australia, it would have been submitted to a series of checks and balances across various consent authorities.
In NSW, for example, these typically include alignment to various state and/or local planning instruments. Typically, consent in writing from the owner of the land and consent in writing from the local council whose land is within direct viewing of said signage (City of Sydney) would need to be obtained.
(The Fifth Estate has contacted the City of Sydney for a comment, which is published below.)
Further measures might include consent from a traffic authority, depending on the footpath and roadway impact.
Lastly, depending on proximity to residential and student accommodation, there would likely be various lighting, sound and digital movement restrictions for the sake of community wellbeing.
According to the NSW State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) (Industry and Employment, 2021, Chapter 3, Advertising and Signage), the SEPP covers the physical structures and placements of digital advertisements in the public realm; it does not cover content.
The Central Precinct, in which Central Park is located, is exempt from these accountabilities. However, that still doesn’t explain the lack of transparency as to how the corporate toy has come to be.
Beyond the publicity release from VMO and the community uproar on social media, which has now been removed, there is not much available by way of an easily accessible paper trail. There does not appear to be a developer amendment or consent application in place, approved by the City of Sydney in its e-planning records.
So, is this a matter of VMO asking for forgiveness instead of permission, or is the installation considered “temporary”? Because that might explain the sticky tape and the use of a public electrical outlet, according to recent visitor accounts.
(A spokesperson at VMO told The Fifth Estate that following complaints about the cube on social media, centre management asked that the ad be taken down, and VMO complied with this the next day. The spokesperson said that as the ad was on privately owned land and was a temporary structure, planning approval was not required. Full statement below.)
This isn’t the first time that the City of Sydney has been embroiled in issues around electronic billboard placement.
In March 2024, it was reported that after significant community backlash, about 20 large electronic billboards were removed and/or relocated owing to their obstruction of walkways and sightlines.
Later in that same year, a council motion to prevent light pollution and other environmental and health disrupters caused by electronic advertisements in Sydney’s public places was lost. So, no win for social and environmental sustainability there.
This is at a time that other cities around the world are reconsidering and readjusting their electronic billboard policies to lessen the environmental impact.
Parks need to be protected
As noted earlier, electronic billboards are so synonymous with public spaces now that we barely notice them. But parks? Really? Is nothing sacred? Because, according to the SEPPs above, they shouldn’t be accepted, except when they are part of privately owned land, such as at Central Park.
This is unfortunate because we seem to keep finding ever more inventive ways to erode our natural habitats in the name of corporate greed and then wonder why our urban environmental and social fabric is fraying.
Sure, it’s not the only reason, but increasing our public clutter isn’t necessarily helping to create more connected communities.
Parks are necessary for environmental and social benefits.
Traditionally, in Sydney, there has been an abundance of public open space, so we really don’t appreciate what our city would be like without these green sanctuaries.
Parks, gardens, and sports fields, for example, contribute greatly to biodiversity, animal and insect habitats, air purification, rainwater runoff, regulating ground temperatures, the urban tree canopy, and places of recreation, relaxation, and play.
We need these sanctums in our urban spaces to break up the intrusiveness and damaging effects of concrete sounds, smells, and sights. We need nature, and frequently our streets, suburbs and cities don’t have enough of it.
There is a robust body of research linking contact with nature to quality of life. People need places to unplug. By defacing these nature based solutions with digital intrusions, we are literally creating a counter tension that goes against every health outcome and sustainable aim both the public and private sector report to value.
Parks and Leisure NSW/ACT said:
“Our open spaces and parks are places where you can connect with nature and leave behind many of the modern-day distractions. Permanent advertising structures in public parks are not permitted under the current legislation, and PLA NSW/ACT strongly supports this situation. All open spaces, no matter where they are, should be free of advertising structures so they can continue to best provide the physical and mental health benefits that are so important to our community. Any scenario where this type of infrastructure can be installed on private land without planning approval is a poor outcome for local and visiting residents. We say open spaces are for green, not for a screen!!”
Full disclosure, I sit on this council, but the opinions provided here are my own.
Who owns the park?
Historically, public open space in Australia has been administered by government agencies.
More recently, as with other examples around the world, there is a growing number of funding models whereby community space is privately funded, thus changing the accountabilities and access to these spaces. As with most things, there is research for and against such privatisation of the public realm.
However, what tends to occur is that privatisation of public parks, for example, creates an environment of exclusivity, commodification, exploitation, and social policing, whereby the original intent of broader public benefit is lost to power imbalances, wealth, influence and in this case, market forces.
Market forces that happen to be tracking your eye movements and then making assumptions using AI about what your subconscious is saying about a particular sign (if the OMA description of their digital technologies is to be believed) is far from ideal.
Given the backlash on this one, we can only wonder at what the large language models and associated data capture mechanisms will make of it. But will it be enough to have VMO rethink its advertising content and placement? Probably not. The question is, what, if anything, is the City of Sydney going to do about it?
I’d say watch this space, but somehow that doesn’t seem comfortable given the circumstances.
Responses
Statement from VMO: “As part of our ongoing collaboration with the centre manager, and following community discussion, we switched off the installation prior to the ending of the activation period,” a spokesperson said. “Staff safety and site operations are important considerations for both the landlord and us, and we will continue to work closely with site operators to ensure all installations are managed appropriately. We appreciate the community feedback received and remain committed to working constructively with all relevant stakeholders.”
Statement from the City of Sydney: “The advertising Cube in Central Park has now been removed after a complaint from a member of the public.
“The City of Sydney is not the landowner – the park where the Cube was located is privately owned but publicly accessible. However, any installation that features third party advertising must obtain development consent from the relevant consent authority.
“A development application was not lodged with the City of Sydney for the Cube, nor was any development consent granted.
“Our compliance team investigated the matter and asked the company that owns the Cube to remove it.”