More than a million people in Australia are affected by someone else’s gambling, according to new research from ANU. These people also face higher risks to their wellbeing, including being more likely to take up high-risk gambling themselves.
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Based on Gambling harm from someone else’s gambling – Affected others in Australian population 2024, published July 2024, alongside a separate paper, Gambling participation in Australia 2024: Trends over time, and profiles associated with online gambling. You can read another policy brief based on that accompanying report here.
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More than 1 in 20 Australian adults, or 1.2 million people, reported being personally affected by someone else’s gambling in the past year.
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This group is more distressed and economically insecure than average, and more likely to have their own gambling problem, according to ANU evidence.
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Tracking the impact of gambling on affected others can help policymakers identify those most at risk and better target harm reduction strategies.
Gambling harm isn’t experienced only by people who gamble – it also has an impact on non-gambling family members and friends. In gambling research, these people are called ‘affected others’.
And while this data needs to be improved, studies so far have estimated that 5 to 8 per cent of Australian adults are affected others.
The ANU Centre for Gambling Research surveyed the population to estimate the prevalence of affected others and track their demographic characteristics.
The research showed that as many as 1.9 million individuals in Australia may be experiencing harm as a result of someone else’s gambling at any one time. Around a third of these are children.
Affected others reported double the rate of severe psychological distress and double the rate of ‘mostly’ feeling lonely in the past week, compared to the rest of the population.
Previous findings from the ANU team also show that that 14 per cent of Australian families with dependent children are exposed to risk by parental gambling. It noted that nearly 4 per cent of Australian families with children are exposed to high-risk parental gambling. This means that around 200,000 children have a parent with serious gambling problems each year.
Affected others reported higher rates of risky gambling, according to the findings. Just over a quarter, or 28 per cent, of affected others had experienced harm from their own gambling in the past 12 months – more than double the 13 per cent recorded in the general population.
Finally, the evidence revealed that more than 1 in 5 affected others scored above a cut-off test indicating serious mental illness. This number in the general population was 1 in 10.
“More than 1 in 5 affected others scored above the cut-off for serious mental illness. This number in the general population is 1 in 10.”
