CANBERRA, Jun 25 (NNN-AAP) – The number of Australians gambling on sport has more than doubled in four years, a new poll found.
The poll of 16,000 Australians, which was published by market research company, Roy Morgan, today, found that, 15.5 percent of respondents said, they had placed a bet on sports at least once in the 12-month period to Mar, 2024, up from seven percent in the period between Apr, 2019 and Mar, 2020.
Extrapolated to the entire population, it means that 3.26 million Australians gambled on sports over 12 months.
Of those who gambled, Roy Morgan found that, 10 percent were problem gamblers, people who chase their losses with further bets, and that they accounted for 34 percent of the total value of all bets placed on sport, in the 12 months to March.
According to a report published by the Queensland Government Statistician’s Office (QGSO) in 2022, Australians lose over 25 billion Australian dollars (16.6 billion U.S. dollars) every year, to gambling, the highest per capita spend in the world.
The Roy Morgan research was released by NGO, the Alliance for Gambling Reform, to mark the one-year anniversary of a government-led parliamentary inquiry, calling for a total ban on all advertising for online gambling within three years.
“We know that last year there were over a million gambling ads bombarding our screens. We have to stop this,” Alliance for Gambling Reform interim chief executive, Martin Thomas, told the Guardian Australia, the local online version of the British newspaper.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, prior to the release of the report that, gambling advertising was annoying, but has not yet announced, if he will adopt the inquiry’s recommendations.– NNN-AAP
