Exclusive: A Guardian Australia investigation has found an increase in the number of young people seeking help for problem gambling, with calls for urgent action
Steven* was just 10 years old when he started gambling online, an addiction that by the age of 15 would see him lose about $2,000 and grappling with embarrassment and despair.
Public health experts say the data represents just a fraction of the young people being harmed, either from their own gambling or that of others. They have called for comprehensive bans on all forms of marketing for gambling products and say that trusting industries to self-regulate doesn’t work. Over the past decade, Deakin University’s Prof Samantha Thomas, a public health sociologist, has spoken with thousands of young Australians and their parents about gambling.
“If you end up winning, you can use the website currency to buy virtual items to then sell for real cash,” Steven says. Some virtual items are considered so prestigious and uncommon that they have become a form of virtual currency that can be re-sold on secondary markets for thousands of real-world dollars.“And if you lose the items, you can just buy more virtual items to gamble with,” he says. “It completely circumvents the 18-plus age requirement for gambling.
“I had a part-time job at McDonald’s while I was at school, but also whenever I would receive money for things like lunches I’d often hold onto it,” he says. “There are no definite age restrictions on many gambling sites, and even if they say there are, if you have a debit card, you can bet. Despite proof of age being required for entry into gaming venues, about 9,000 teenagers who took part in the study reported having spent money on poker machines, casino table games and Keno. The Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission in September charged Tabcorp and eight venues for allegedly allowing a minor to gamble on 27 separate occasions.
He says young people have been conditioned to gamble on pokies and betting tables in a rapid and reckless way by apps and websites where betting is instantaneous. He says that when he turned 18 he went to Crown casino with only $20, including the free $10 worth of table vouchers the casino gave to new members at the time.
“And they are very aware that this is something that the government should be doing more about in order to protect them.”
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