'Alarming': One In Three Aussie Children Gambling
About one in 3 Aussie kids are chancing on their futures, losing more than $18 million to betting each year.
The most recent findings released by think tank the Australia Institute reveal 30 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds gamble, with the figure spiralling to practically half of 18 to 19-year-olds.
That's 600,000 teenagers gambling each year.
Gambling reform advocates say it's the outcome of an intentional attempt by the betting market to groom kids to gamble from a very young age.
"There is evidence that the gaming market targets kids as young as 14 years of ages through social networks, advising them to download betting advertisements, and the saturation of gambling advertisements around our major football codes is also luring kids to bet," Alliance for Gambling Reform primary executive Martin Thomas stated.
"It is both alarming and awful to comprehend that the number of teens betting under the legal age would fill the MCG six times over."
The alliance is contacting all candidates in the upcoming federal election to devote to the suggestions made following the Murphy inquiry into online gaming, chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.
The inquiry's 2023 report discovered a "torrent" of advertising and simulated gambling through computer game was grooming kids to wager and encouraging riskier behaviour.
It recommended a total phase-out of all betting marketing over 3 years.
Despite the evaluation being all backed across parliament with no dissenting remarks, Labor has dragged its feet on betting reform despite increasing pressure to ban betting ads.
Australians already rack up the world's greatest losses, placing $244.3 billion in bets every year.
Rates of gambling have increased because 2019 and average yearly losses rose from almost $2000 per person to about $2500, according to the Australian Institute report.
The country's overall betting losses at $31.5 billion competitors the entire Northern Territory economy and is greater than the $21 billion lost to gambling in all of Las Vegas, the report included.