The proportion of online gamblers seeking help has doubled from pre-COVID levels, while those who use pokies and casinos have fallen.
Rick Loos, who is the associate program director of Turning Point Treatment Services, a GHO operator, said most people requesting counselling were aged 20 to 34, with 70 per cent of calls for men. GHO received almost 13,000 counselling requests in 2023-24, after fielding no more than 7700 the three previous financial years.
Loos has observed a surge in help for sports betting, which overtook demand for horse and greyhound racing in the past year, amid greater public scrutiny of gambling advertisements during sports broadcasts.
“A lot of the marketing these days is really targeting that young male,” Loos said, adding that group betting promotions were a real concern.
“We get people who are stuck and find it difficult to, perhaps, pull out of a ‘bet with mates’ group. They could have even instigated the group … but because they’ve got to almost out themselves as having a problem with their mates … it’s a tough thing for someone to admit.”
Online gambling provider Sportsbet often spruiks its “Bet with Mates” group betting option in live sports broadcasts.
A Sportsbet spokesperson said it offered “several safer gambling tools”, including deposit limits, and encouraged gamblers to “support and look out for group members who wish to limit their betting activity”.
They did not answer questions about whether the Bet with Mates promotion and associated advertisements exacerbated gambling harm among customers.
Robert said gambling advertising had impacted his behaviour.
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“If I see odds or something like that, then I feel like I deserve to bet as well,” he said.
“If I see other people are betting, then I feel excited to get back … it’s like a feeling in my stomach, I’ll start getting an adrenaline rush from it, and then well I’ve just got to do it.”
One-fifth of GHO’s counselling requests related to online gambling 10 years ago, but it now makes up half of their total calls.
In NSW, the proportion of gamblers who sought help for in-person gambling through the state’s GambleAware service has fallen by almost 20 percentage points since 2019, while online counselling has more than doubled.
Loos has observed a rising number of online gamblers developing addictions while working from home, where they face greater temptation away from the “containment” of the office.
There’s concern that rising exposure to online betting platforms will lead to a normalisation of gambling among Australia’s youth.
“A lot of males who end up with a gambling issue, they’ll talk about it being part of their history,” Loos said. “It’s something that their dad did, they went to the races … now people are doing it at home. Kids will notice people on phones, they will see ads, they will see it like they do drinking.”
A parliamentary inquiry last year recommended a ban on online gambling advertisements. The federal government is yet to respond to the report formally, though is widely tipped to propose a partial ban.
A Grattan Institute report released last month found Australians lost an average of $1600 to gambling per year, more than any other country.
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Online gambling addiction accounts for one-fifth of support line calls
