Collective amnesia is already the race favourite.

One year ago, the Cup was the most deadly in 154 years.

The pre-race favourite, Admire Rakti ran last and collapsed in his stall, his death recorded for posterity on YouTube.

The field returned to the mounting yard when seventh placegetter Araldo, spooked by a flag in the crowd, kicked the fence and broke a leg and was put down by university vets that night.

The deaths created a furore and raised questions about whether horses were pushed too far for profit and fun.

The Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses claims since the Melbourne Cup fatalities at least 115 horses have died on Australian racetracks.

Coalition campaign director Elio Celotto said the total deaths were a slight decrease on the previous year when 133 horses died.

"Still, that means a horse died on an Australian racecourse every 3.2 days this year," he said.

"This year the most lethal course is Rosehill Gardens in Sydney, home of the famous two-year-old race The Golden Slipper. A total of six horses died on their track."

Mr Celotto said the horses that died in 2014/15 represented 0.32 per cent of the 36,000 horses currently racing but claimed many thousands more "disappeared" or were cycled out of the industry annually.

The industry moved to quell the furore that followed the Melbourne Cup deaths – in 2013 Verema broke a leg and was euthanised on the Flemington track as the field thundered down the straight, the first horse to be put down since Three Crowns in 1998 and favourite Dulcify in 1979.

Racing Australia chief executive Peter McGauran said animal rights groups had seized on the 2014 deaths to make a political point to shut down racing and stressed the level of safety and veterinary care for racehorses was of the highest standard and extremely well regulated. He preferred to focus on reforms that addressed what happened to animals after their racing careers were over.

He said 7461 animals left the industry last year and 68 per cent of them became equestrians or pleasure horses, 20 per cent went into breeding, 3.5 per cent were euthanised.

"We passed a rule 12 months ago requiring owners to advise us on the retirement of their horse and its destination/future. It's the first such rule in the world and the results largely tally with the surveys we were previously undertaking. We have a good story to tell on the retirement of racehorses," he said.

Mr Celotto said many Australians were aware of the cruelty involved in racing and were turning their backs on the sport.

He cited attendances for the Melbourne Cup Carnival: In 2006, 418,069 went to Flemington, last year only 325,519 rolled up.

For most of us it's a chance for a once-a-year flutter in a sweepstake or a plain vanilla bet at the TAB. By the time the Spring Carnival, horse racing's most prestigious season is over, Australians will have bet nearly $1.5 billion since August.

There's a war raging for the gambling dollar as multinational online gambling houses slug it out for a share of a lucrative but overcrowded sports betting market, worth about $750 million in revenue, but with turnover 10 times that. On top of that, offshore operators are trying to lure Australians – the biggest gamblers in the world – to part with their cash.

It used to be that to place a bet punters had to wander down to the dingy TAB or make a phone call. But increasingly online betting companies are testing the boundaries of the law to offer all manner of exotic betting: things like in-race betting – which allows punters to place bets up to 20 seconds after the horses start running, rebates on horses coming second and third, and cash or rewards schemes and other inducements to open an online account.

Simultaneously, mobile phones have made gambling more accessible anywhere anytime, particularly to a new demographic – young men – who have grown up transacting virtually every aspect of their life on the phone. And the companies want their business.

Over the last decade several big multinational betting companies have entered the Australian market, taking on Tabcorp with online betting shops. British giant William Hill took over Tom Waterhouse last year. Ladbrokes, also from the Britain is here, as is Unibet from Europe. Sportsbet, the home-grown online operator, has been taken over by Irish company, Paddy Power.

Before the Melbourne Cup, the online betting companies are offering all manner of inducements. For example William Hill is offering $150 free if you open a new account with $50, and Ladbrokes is offering up to $250.

The fine print says that the stake must be turned over at least two times before it can be withdrawn and because of laws prohibiting inducements in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, they are not available in those states. But by the time a punter realises he is ineligible, he will probably have signed up for an account.

Gambling is also the fastest-growing category of advertising on TV. Until 2009 advertising by interstate gambling companies was banned by NSW and Victorian legislation. Most online companies are based in the Northern Territory for tax reasons. Companies allegedly relied on dubious practices such as giving journalists free credit in their accounts to mention their name. But in 2009 the High Court ruled the laws were a restraint of trade and since then it's been open slather – particularly during sports events – even those televised at times when children are watching.

In the first nine months of this year, from January to September, the industry spent $107.6 million on TV ads alone, up 38 per cent on the same period in 2014, according to Standard Media Index, a company which measures advertising spends. And those figures don't include the massive spend for the Spring Carnival and the Melbourne Cup.

Gambling has become a lifeline for free-to-air television. Standard Media Index chief executive Jane Schultz says gambling ads have rocketed from the 15th-largest category in 2014 to eighth.

The companies are also active on social media. They tweet to the football codes' hashtags and post funny shareable videos on YouTube, featuring their logos.

But anti-gambling campaigners warn that online gambling, and the way it is being marketed, has dramatically raised the danger for young people.

In researching this story, I discovered that my 19-year-old and most of her friends have online gambling accounts. "Of course, everyone does," she said, as if I had asked about Instagram. "It saves you having to go to the TAB."

But it is not so benign as Instagram. Deakin University researcher Samantha Thomas says online gambling effectively puts a gambling venue, open 24/7, in your pocket. The marketing for online gambling is targeted towards young men.

One campaign showed legendary Socceroos goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer on the couch with two blokes, wearing green and gold scarves as the national anthem played and pulling out their phones to bet on their team.

"The message was 'betting is patriotic and entirely normal'," Thomas says. "It's a step in the normalisation of betting among young men. They are shown in peer groups, and sports betting is being directly linked with common symbols surrounding the sport."

Once signed up, online gamblers can expect regular correspondence by email or even phone calls if they are valuable enough.

A few months ago the online site New Daily published a first-person piece, the confessions of a "retention officer". He described how his job was to ring people who had been inactive and offer free bets or credit. Often he would find himself convincing someone who was desperately trying to give up their habit.

South Australian senator Nick Xenophon, a long-standing campaigner for robust gambling controls, says online gambling and the way it is being marketed with matching free bets to get people to open accounts, free credit and saturation advertising aimed at young people, threatens to spawn a new epidemic of problem gamblers.

Because of its immediacy, online gambling, is as addictive as poker machines, he says.

"I am worried we will have a generation of young men who won't be able to buy a car, go overseas, buy a house," he says. "The scars of that will be long-lasting and have huge social consequences."

In September the federal government finally initiated a long-promised inquiry into the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. It will be undertaken by former NSW premier Barry O'Farrell. Written in 2000, it's clear the act is struggling to keep up with technology.

Take for example the issue of in-play betting – placing bets once a race or event has started – which is legal in TABs and over the phone but illegal online.

The policy reason behind the ban, Monash University researcher Charles Livingstone says, is that in-play betting online, unlike making a bet at the TAB, is instantaneous and continuous, offering a similar intense emotional experience as pokies. Punters can literally see the odds changing.

William Hill, headed by Tom Waterhouse locally, along with another British rival Bet365 have been operating a controversial service. It requires punters to keep their smartphone microphone on, while placing bets online. This they say, makes it a phone service, within the law.

A few months ago, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which has responsibility for internet services, referred William Hill to the Australian Federal Police after a complaint. This week the AFP said it would not investigate, based on resourcing issues, leaving the service's legality still up in the air.

"This is a great outcome for Australian punters who will no longer be forced to bet In-Play via illegal offshore bookmakers which pose a huge threat to both consumer protection and the integrity of Australian sport," Waterhouse said.

"Throughout the development and before launching In-Play, William Hill took prudent steps to ensure In-Play is a 'telephone betting service' that is 100 per cent legal and compliant under the Interactive Gambling Act," he said.

"What sets William Hill apart as a company is its willingness to push the boundaries through technology and innovation to give its customers something much better."

But whether the review will delve into this and other more pressing social questions arising out of the growth of online services remains to be seen.

The review makes it clear that its primary focus is illegal offshore based services which ignore the Australian laws. As well as offering prohibited casino games like roulette and pokies online, they sidestep licensing, tax and harm-minimisation codes.

"It is estimated that offshore wagering is a $1 billion annual illegal business in Australia," then social services minister Scott Morrison said when he announced the review.

Xenophon says that there is no doubt that the illegal offshore sites have caused "enormous hardship". "People have lost huge amounts of money especially to operators based in Gibraltar," he says.

But that's only part of the issue, he says, as evidenced by the 2013 report by the Department of Communications into online gambling and the submissions of Financial Counselling Australia.

The promotion and marketing, provision of free credit, unfettered by the consumer credit legislation, offering inducements and other aspects of the local online industry also need to be tackled, he says.

The fourth term of reference of the review appears to provide scope to look at locally based online gambling. It says the review will look at "the efficacy of approaches to protect the consumer – including warnings, information resources, public information campaigns and any other measures, regulatory or otherwise, that could mitigate the risk of negative social impacts on consumers".

Interestingly, there is no mention of advertising, and The Australian has reported the TV networks argued vociferously against it being specifically included.

A spokesman for the new minister, Christian Porter, said term 4 was deliberately broad and what was anticipated is that it will draw out issues and inform the formation of future gambling policy.

But others, like Livingstone are more sceptical, particularly as the inquiry is meant to report by December 18.

He's also worried by the choice of O'Farrell to head the review, pointing out that both sides of politics in NSW are close to Clubs NSW and the Australian Hotels Association, both big players in the gambling industry. In addition, O'Farrell also granted the second casino licence to James Packer's Crown, which is also an emerging player in online gambling.

"What worries me greatly is that in order to tackle people being hoodwinked by illegal offshore operators, there will be a recommendation to deregulate to allow Australian online services and clubs to provide casino-style games."

Tabcorp, which as the incumbent is feeling the pressure from the new competition, is backing a broad review and calling for it to explore not only offshore but onshore online gambling and the tsunami of advertising.

"This review presents the perfect opportunity to define the type of wagering industry we want in Australia and address the inconsistencies," chairwoman Paula Dwyer said.

"We believe there needs to be a single rule across the country in relation to the offering of credit by bookmakers. Northern Territory-licensed corporate bookmakers can offer their clients lines of credit, although TABs cannot. We believe the easiest way to address this is to introduce a single rule preventing wagering operators from acting as lenders and providing credit to customers. Nationally consistent advertising and inducement laws would reduce confusion for customers and wagering operators," she says.

"We agree with the community that it is too much and would support sensible solutions to reduce the extent of the advertising."

The Australian Wagering Council, which represents a number of the big online bookmakers including William Hill and Betfair says it anticipates interested parties making submissions to the O'Farrell review that may also raise issues that address the broader regulation of the Australian online wagering industry.

The Australian Wagering Council considers the Australian regulatory environment confusing for both customers and operators.

"The promotion and delivery of responsible gambling and harm-minimisation measures is a key aspect of good regulation. The Australian Wagering Council has long acknowledged the importance of commercially sensible regulation of advertising, product offers and inducements and deferred settlement facilities," it says.

- Anne Davies