Gambling Reform Now.
Australia has normalised a public health crisis.
We are the biggest gambling losers on Earth. Australians lose more than $31.5 billion a year to gambling, the highest per capita losses anywhere in the world. That is more than the federal government spends annually on aged care. Every year, the average Australian loses more than $1,500 to gambling.
This is not a quirky national habit. It is not harmless entertainment. It is a catastrophe hiding in plain sight.
The worst part is that we know exactly what needs to be done.
Nearly three years ago, the bipartisan parliamentary inquiry led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy handed down one of the most comprehensive gambling reform blueprints Australia has ever seen. The Murphy Report made 31 recommendations to reduce harm, protect children and drag Australia’s gambling laws into the modern age. It was evidence-based, widely supported and morally urgent.
The government should adopt every single recommendation.
Not some of them. Not watered-down compromises negotiated with betting companies and television executives. All of them.
Because what we are doing now is failing an entire generation of Australians, particularly young men.
Gambling has become embedded in Australian masculinity in a way that should terrify us. Young boys grow up watching sport drenched in betting odds, gambling logos and “same game multis”. They hear commentators discussing betting markets as casually as weather forecasts. They are taught, from childhood, that gambling is part of being an Australian sports fan.
It is predatory by design.
Research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that 44 per cent of Australian men aged between 18 and 63 gambled within a single year. Around one in four men who gambled were considered at risk of, or already experiencing, problem gambling. Those men were significantly more likely to experience financial stress, depression and harmful alcohol use
“Problem gambling, also known as gambling disorder or addiction, is any repetitive betting behaviour that disrupts or damages a person's life. It is characterised by a loss of control over the time and money spent on gambling, and a tendency to continue betting despite severe personal, financial, or emotional consequences.”
Young men are being hit especially hard by online betting culture. Sports betting apps have transformed gambling from something people occasionally did at the pub into a 24-hour digital addiction machine sitting permanently in people’s pockets. Australians are now the biggest online gambling losers in the world on a per capita basis.
Gambling harm is not abstract.
It means rent money disappearing overnight. It means parents unable to afford groceries because wages have vanished into poker machines. It means relationships collapsing under the weight of hidden debts and compulsive behaviour. It means anxiety, depression and suicide.
Research consistently links gambling harm to family violence, severe psychological distress and financial devastation. One study estimated the social cost of gambling in Victoria alone at around $7 billion once mental health impacts, emotional trauma and relationship breakdown are accounted for.
Major sporting events are consistently associated with spikes in domestic and family violence. Studies, like the 2024 study from DVConnect, have shown increases of up to 40% in reported domestic violence incidents during events like State of Origin, AFL finals and major football matches, particularly when alcohol and gambling are involved.
Gambling intensifies emotional volatility, the anger of losses, financial stress and impulsive behaviour can compound already dangerous dynamics inside homes. When sport becomes saturated with hyper-masculine betting culture, heavy drinking and emotionally charged tribalism, the consequences are not confined to stadiums or betting apps. They spill into living rooms, relationships and households across the country. The normalisation of gambling within Australian sport is not just a financial or public health issue; it is part of a broader culture that too often leaves women and families carrying the consequences of male anger, addiction and emotional harm.
A man sitting in his car after losing his pay cheque at the pokies. A university student chasing losses at 3am on a betting app. A family discovering tens of thousands of dollars in hidden gambling debts. A teenager who has grown up believing gambling is inseparable from sport because every ad break, every jersey sponsorship and every podcast tells him so.
And still the industry keeps expanding.
Why?
It’s quite simple, really. Gambling companies make enormous profits from addiction. They do not make billions from casual punters putting five dollars on the Melbourne Cup once a year. Their business model depends on heavy users losing heavily and repeatedly.
That is why the advertising is everywhere.
Australians are now exposed to thousands of gambling ads every year. Children can recognise betting brands before they understand interest rates or taxation. During major sporting events, gambling promotions are so relentless that watching football increasingly feels like watching a three-hour betting commercial interrupted by sport.
Imagine if cigarette companies were allowed to sponsor halftime panels and market flavoured cigarettes directly to teenagers during prime-time television. Australians would rightly be horrified.
Somehow, we have normalised this.
The government argues it wants a “balanced” approach. But there is no balanced position when an industry profits from addiction, despair and financial ruin. We did not “balance” tobacco advertising with public health. We regulated it aggressively because the evidence demanded it.
Gambling should be treated the same way.
The Murphy Report called for a phased ban on online gambling advertising, stronger protections for children, restrictions on inducements and the creation of a national regulator. These are not radical ideas. They are basic public health measures supported by psychologists, researchers and gambling harm advocates.
The public is already ahead of the political class.
Australians are exhausted by seeing gambling consume sport, destroy savings and prey on vulnerable people. Polling repeatedly shows overwhelming support for stronger gambling advertising restrictions because ordinary people can see what politicians too often refuse to admit: this industry is causing immense harm.
Yet meaningful reform keeps stalling because the gambling lobby is politically powerful. Broadcasters rely on gambling advertising revenue. Sporting codes are financially dependent on betting sponsorships. Governments fear the backlash of taking on vested interests.
But leadership is not measured by how effectively politicians protect corporate revenue streams. Leadership is measured by whether governments are willing to protect people.
Australia once led the world on tobacco reform. We should do the same with gambling.
Every day the government delays meaningful action, more Australians fall into addiction. More families are torn apart. More young men mistake gambling for entertainment instead of recognising it as an industry engineered to exploit human vulnerability.
The Murphy Report gave the government a roadmap. The evidence is overwhelming. The public support exists.
Now all that remains is political courage.
Sign the Australia Institute Petition Here
Further Reading / References
Parliament of Australia — You Win Some, You Lose More (Murphy Report)
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare — Gambling in Australia
Australian Institute of Family Studies — Gambling Participation and Harm Among Australian Men
Grattan Institute — A Better Bet: How Australia Should Prevent Gambling Harm