That’s 600,000 pre-teens and teens – collectively losing more than $18 million each year.
A new discussion paper, just released by the Australian Institute also reveals that our nation's teenagers – before and after they turn 18 – are more likely to gamble than to play any of the most popular sports in their age group.
Gambling reform advocates say it’s the result of a deliberate attempt by the gambling industry to groom children to gamble from a very young age.
“There is evidence that the gambling industry targets kids as young as 14 years old through social media, urging them to download gambling ads, and the saturation of gambling ads around our major football codes is also luring children to gamble,” Alliance for Gambling Reform chief executive Martin Thomas says.
“It is both alarming and tragic to understand that the number of teenagers gambling under the legal age would fill the MCG six times over.”
The alliance is calling on all candidates in the upcoming federal election to commit to the recommendations made following the 2022 inquiry into online gambling, chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.
The inquiry recommended a total phase-out of all gambling advertising over three years.
Despite the review being unanimously backed across parliament with no dissenting remarks, and increasing pressure to ban betting ads, the Federal Government has dragged its feet on gambling reform.
Three weeks into the election campaign, it is yet to introduce any policies in response.
In a recent campaign video, Liberal member for the NSW electorate of Cook, Simon Kennedy, says: “Kids see an average of 948 gambling ads on TV every year. This is unacceptable. What’s also unacceptable is Labor promised to bring on legislation dealing with this last year but has failed to deliver it.”
Kennedy’s side of politics, however, is also sitting on its hands and offering precious little by way of policies.
A parliamentary inquiry in 2022 found a "torrent" of advertising and simulated gambling through video games was grooming children to bet and encouraging riskier behaviour and recommended a total phase-out of all gambling advertising over three years.
Moderate Liberal MP Keith Wolahan was a member of the 2022 bipartisan committee, yet he and the Coalition have resisted calls from advocates to take a policy to the election that would ban gambling advertising outright.
Instead the Coalition has pledged to ban “gambling ads one hour before, during and one hour after live sports broadcasts”.
Tim Costello is chief advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform and says it is little surprise that despite the Murphy review recommendations, here we are in 2025 with no progress, nor any prospect of it.
“Albo’s (Prime Minister Albanese’s) refused to respond because the AFL, NRL and the broadcasters 7, 9, 10, Foxtel, along with, of course, the sports betting companies said, ‘don’t you dare touch that. That’s revenue for us',” Costello tells EducationHQ.
“He ran the line, ‘oh, it would affect regional TV’. The figure given was about $27 million for regional TV. Well, that’s nothing to protect kids and from the millions of ads a year on free-to-air TV and then all over social media.”
Costello says even though they know from the last major national survey that 80 per cent of the public want a ban on sports betting ads, the most powerful vested interests, the broadcasters, don’t.
“It’s a little glimpse into democracy. You’d think with 80 per cent of the public behind it, the politicians would follow. No, not when the vested interests are that powerful and moneyed. That’s the story there.”
He says in the absence of government action, “schools have to, with their duty of care, say ‘this is a massive issue that affects mental health. It sets up potentially a lifelong addiction. We have to step in'.”
“I’m always loath to download every social problem in society onto teachers, I know they carry too heavy a weight already – but in the face of monumental government failure to regulatory capture the gambling industry, schools need to be doing more,” he says.
Costello explains that it was actually teachers who raised the issue with Alliance for Gambling Reform and “put it on our radar”.
“A teacher at Sunshine Coast High School and a teacher at a private school down here in the Mornington Peninsula, were developing an app to actually help kids protect themselves,” the community leader says.
“And when they spoke to us about how many of their kids were underage or gambling, 12-17-year-olds, we were amazed.”
Costello says the latest Australia Institute research came from teachers who were literally saying ‘all my Year 11 boys are gambling’.
“Principals and teachers need to actually be having the conversation in intentional forums, because what we know from the Roy Morgan research and different researchers, is that now one in four 18-24-year-olds has a gambling addiction, a sports betting gambling addiction.
“They’re literally being groomed in school. They’re starting gambling earlier, and then they’re gambling longer and longer and developing great harm.”
The Australian Institute paper found that annual expenditure on gambling among teenagers is an estimated $231 million, which on average works out as $86.72 per teenager per year.
Just on $213 million a year is spent by 18- and 19-year-olds, which is roughly $321 per individual, or a staggering $698 a year if the figure is limited only to those who gamble.
The Australian Institute analysis showed gambling habits established in teenage years persist at least until the mid-20s.
Across 2022-2023, Australians placed $244.3 billion in bets. With little appetite on the part of either major parties to tackle gambling advertising, it’s odds on that number will continue to skyrocket.
(with AAP)
To look at the many resources provided by Alliance for Gambling Reform, click here.
To read the Australia Institute's discussion paper ‘Teenage Gambling in Australia’, click here.
