A recent poll found 15.5% of Australians bet on sports over a recent 12-month period, with problem gamblers accounting for a disproportionate percentage of the total wagered.
Roy Morgan polled 16,000 Australians about their sports betting practices between April 2023 and March 2024. The results, released by the Alliance for Gambling Reform and summarized by The Guardian Australia, implied twice as many Australians were betting on sports than did during the same period in 2019-20.
The polling implies that 3.26 million Australians bet on sports during the study period. Of those bettors, roughly 10% self-identified as a problem gambler. Those problem gamblers, however, accounted for 34% of the total amount wagered on sports.
While the uptick in Australia’s sports betting activity is noteworthy, it is not surprising. Sports betting is growing the world over. Australia, however, has been at it longer than most countries. Australia has had retail sports betting since the 80s – with online sports betting ramping up in the late 90s. As a result, Australia has had more experience with the industry’s regulatory challenges and safety issues. And the country continues to implement regulations designed to improve the health and safety of its gambling public.
Just this month, Australia banned the use of credit cards and cryptocurrencies to fund online gambling accounts. While credit card use was already banned in land-based casinos, the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2023 extended the ban to online gambling. It also launched BetStop, a national self-exclusion register.
Australia introduced tighter gambling advertising rules as recently as 2018. That said, $234 million AU was spent on more than one million television and radio gambling ads between May 2022 and April 2023. Studies have shown a significant increase in underage gambling in Australia, many children influenced by the prevalence of the sector’s ads.
Last year, a parliamentary committee recommended phasing out online gambling ads within three years’ time. While tighter advertising restrictions have not yet come to fruition, Australia’s Communications Minister Michelle Rowland recently stated the government was still “firmly committed to minimizing harms from online wagering.”
