Recent data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) shows that three in four Australians aged 18 and over had gambled in the past year as of 2022. Among those who gambled, almost half (46%) were classified as being at some risk of gambling harm. Ms Plibersek on Tuesday announced more funding for a domestic violence hotline but was asked about frustrations regarding the government failing to reply to 31 recommendations from a landmark gambling harm inquiry two years later. The Committee adopted an inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on problem gamblers on 15 September 2022, following a referral from the Minister for Social Services, the Hon Amanda Rishworth MP.
“But with the prime minister blocking any action, joining the Parliamentary Friends of Gambling Harm Minimisation may be the only way Labor MPs can express their community’s support for serious reform.” Over the past year, our Voices have campaigned for gambling reform by sharing their stories in the media, speaking to federal and state politicians, as well as providing evidence at government inquiries and hearings. Cashless gaming is currently a https://princespies.com/ major focus for NSW, and is an important part of tackling money laundering via pokies,211 but is not an essential pre-cursor for mandatory pre-commitment. Mandatory pre-commitment for pokies should be a priority given that pokies are a particularly harmful form of gambling (see Chapter 1). NSW stands out in having banned political donations from gambling businesses because of the potential for influence and perception of influence.167 But gambling interests in NSW still can and do donate at the federal level.
How much does the average gambler lose in Australia?
How much do Australians lose gambling? As any gambler will tell you though, not every dollar spent is lost. The same report tallied Australian national gambling expenditure (total gambling winnings subtracted from total turnover) at $31.5 billion. Per adult that's about $1,527 lost to gambling every year.
Inquiry Status
Pokies are more common in our suburbs than post boxes, ATMs, or public toilets. And they are particularly prevalent in NSW, which has almost as many pokies as the rest of Australia combined. ‘Tipping’ is a worldwide phenomena but has special significance in Australian culture. Tipping involves sharing what we know with others, and potentially being rewarded with their praise and gratitude, gifts, or financial ‘slings’. We often share tips with our friends in hushed tones, and with restrained excitement.
- We are encouraged to gamble with our friends, gamble while consuming alcohol to make it more fun, gamble in social venues, while eating, and on our mobile devices.
- For example, the federal government could take full responsibility for regulating online betting, while still enabling states to collect online betting revenue through their point-of-consumption taxes.
- One in five bettors accessing overseas sites were looking to access live in-play online betting, which is illegal in Australia, while 48 per cent went looking for better offers and 44 per cent better promotions.
- And in NSW – the state with almost as many pokies as the rest of the country combined – the most recent state election was fought at least in part on pokies reforms.
- A national survey reveals that around three million Australians are engaged in some form of harmful gambling, which is linked to financial stress, family violence and poor mental health.
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In parallel, the federal government should investigate the feasibility of a universal pre-commitment system with maximum loss limits. We also need a ‘seatbelt’ for the most dangerous gambling products, to stop catastrophic losses when people lose control. Problem gambling is a major public health concern in Australia and internationally (Blank et al., 2021), referring to a pattern of harmful gambling behaviours. Population prevalence estimates for past year problem gambling ranging from 0.1% to 5.8% globally (Calado & Griffiths, 2016) and from 0.7% to 1.0% in Australia (Delfabbro & King, 2021). Certain gambling transactions, no matter how small, can immediately be flagged.
Australia should introduce a gambling warning label,201 so that people know when a game contains gambling-like features. This would help gamers of all ages avoid exposure to gambling if they wish, and it may be particularly helpful for parents to reduce their children’s incidental exposure to gambling. The proliferation of pokies is a problem that state governments should chip away at over time, at the very least to avoid making things worse. Federal rules around lobbying and political donations are weak,180 enabling those with motivation and resources to have more say – and sway – over public policy than they should. This recent history makes Tasmania’s current pokies reforms all the more remarkable (see Box 6 in Chapter 3).
“Going soft on banning digital and online advertising will leave families vulnerable to the gambling industry vultures. Extraordinarily, half of the people surveyed who bet offshore, were registered with BetStop, the national self-exclusion register, while 30 per cent of people are betting with credit, which has been illegal in the onshore Australian market since mid-2024. High-loss gamblers are predominantly employed men aged 25 to 44, including many with children and mortgages, as well as people in financial stress or with mental health vulnerabilities. The Labor MP, who has decades of medical experience as a paediatrician in Western Sydney, said he saw gambling advertising as a “public health issue”. In a sign of mounting pressure on the Albanese government to address gambling harms, MPs from across the political divide, unions, Labor grassroots members and advocates are increasingly formalising their efforts to lobby for action. But if they did, they would imply that some Australians must suffer immense harm so that others can pay a little less for sport, or punt a little more seamlessly.
Just 5 per cent of gamblers account for 77 per cent of gambling spending using debit cards (Figure 1.6). This top 5 per cent spend 10 times as much as the bottom 80 per cent combined. People who gamble, their families, and the broader community pay the price in their finances, health, and wellbeing.
