'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 current findings released by think tank the Australia Institute show 30 percent of 12 to 17-year-olds gamble, with the figure spiralling to almost half of 18 to 19-year-olds.


That's 600,000 each year.


Gambling reform advocates say it's the result of a deliberate effort by the betting market to groom kids to bet from a really young age.


"There is evidence that the gambling industry targets kids as young as 14 years of ages through social networks, prompting them to download betting ads, and the saturation of gambling advertisements around our major football codes is likewise drawing children to bet," Alliance for Gambling Reform president Martin Thomas stated.


"It is both worrying and terrible to comprehend that the variety of teens betting under the legal age would fill the MCG six times over."


The alliance is getting in touch with all prospects in the upcoming federal election to devote to the recommendations made following the Murphy query into online gaming, chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.


The questions's 2023 report discovered a "torrent" of marketing and simulated gaming through video games was grooming kids to wager and motivating riskier behaviour.


It recommended an overall phase-out of all gambling advertising over 3 years.


Despite the review being all backed across parliament with no dissenting remarks, Labor has dragged its feet on gambling reform in spite of increasing pressure to ban betting ads.


Australians already rack up the world's greatest gambling losses, positioning $244.3 billion in bets every year.


Rates of gambling have increased given that 2019 and average annual losses rose from nearly $2000 per person to about $2500, according to the Australian Institute report.


The nation's overall betting losses at $31.5 billion competitors the entire Northern Territory economy and is higher than the $21 billion lost to gambling in all of Las Vegas, the report added.