Steven recalls first being exposed to gambling via influencers and advertisements in online video games. One study of Victorian secondary school students found almost a third had gambled in the previous 30 days. More than monetary lossĪustralians lose about $25bn on legal forms of gambling each year, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – the largest per capita losses in the world.Ĭhildren grow up with gambling enmeshed in the sports they play and watch, and the online environment offers innovative ways for gambling to be marketed to them. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundupĪ joint study between Federation University and the coroner’s court of Victoria, released last month, found that between 20, 184 of 4,788 suicide deaths in the state were gambling related.įourteen of those were 17- to 24-year-olds.

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.

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. Now 24 and living in Melbourne, he says the habit led to drug use, as well as mental health issues that he is “only just starting to recover from”.Ī Guardian Australia investigation has revealed an increasing number of young people are entering adulthood with depression and anxiety, alongside debt and relationship breakdowns, because of gambling in their youth.ĭata provided by Gambling Help Online revealed a 16% increase in the number of young people aged 24 and under contacting the help service in the 2022-23 financial year, with youth aged between 15 and 24 in Victoria accounting for about 600 of those 2,136 requests for help.

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