Problem gambling among young Australians on the rise

New research has revealed the increasing issue of problem gambling among young Australians between the ages of 18 to 34 who have been exposed to betting advertisements.

The study was conducted by the Australian Gambling Research Centre (AGRC) in the Australian Institute of Family Studies. It showed that around 34% of young people had started betting more after watching gamblings adverts.

Out of the number, 28% changed the activity they bet on or attempted new wagering methods after watching a gambling advert. The study also showed that 29% of individuals place wagers on impulse after being exposed to betting advertisements.

In 2021 alone, Australian sports betting firms spent over $287 million advertising their gambling offers. The figure was $16 million higher than the previous year.

The executive manager of AGRC, Rebecca Jenkinson, revealed that women were more prone than men to placing bets after exposure to an ad. Around one in five young women reportedly placed their first bets after seeing a gambling ad, compared to one in seven men.

“Young men aged 18 to 34 are much more likely to gamble on all of the products that we look at — they spend more money, they gamble more frequently, and they’re more at risk of harm,” Dr. Jenkinson continued.

“So while young men are certainly the focus of a lot of our work … we are starting to see more young women gamble on these products.”

Dr. Jenkinson recommended further advertising restrictions due to the obvious link between exposure and gambling harm.

According to the University of Queensland’s director of Digital Cultures and Societies, Associate Professor Nicholas Carah, the oversaturation of gambling ads is part of a broader ploy to “normalise” the relationship between betting and sport. He also pointed out the issue of social media advertising and how gambling firms collect large amounts of data about a person from their profiles.

“That’s what makes it so much more harmful than it used to be — that you have this effort to both normalise it at the exact moment you have this enormously powerful automated machinery for tuning and targeting this kind of advertising,” Dr. Carah said.

Responsible Wagering Australia (RWA), the sports betting industry’s peak body, released a statement asserting that the betting landscape of Australia was among the strictest worldwide. An RWA spokesperson said its members took the issue of gambling harm seriously and contributed to reducing the number of individuals suffering from it.

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