FACING THE ODDS

Australia has the highest gambling losses per person in the world. But poker machines and online betting are not only costing money, they are costing lives too

- Adrienne Tam

Numbers. There are a lot of numbers in gambling.

The betting odds on a sports game or a horse race, choosing between 36 or 50 games on a $100 million lottery ticket, pressing a flashing button countless times in a darkened room, a flick of the wrist and a roll of the dice. Step right up; let the numbers decide!

But here are other numbers to consider: Australia has the highest gambling losses per capita of any country in the world, with Australians losing $1555 per person a year in 2022-23, up from $1395 in 2021-22 (compare this with New Zealand at $584 per year, or the United States at $809). Latest figures collated by the Queensland government put the national gambling losses in the 2022-23 financial year at $32 billion, a significant increase from the already staggering figure of $25.6 billion pre-Covid. Online betting and pokies account for almost 80 per cent of the total gambling losses in Australia, with casinos and lotteries taking up the rest.

Despite having less than 0.5 per cent of the world's population, Australia has about 20 per cent of its poker machines, with New South Wales leading the charge at 90,000 machines, second only to Las Vegas, which has about 120,000. According to a recent Grattan Institute report, 93 per cent of Australia's pokies are not in casinos, and poker machines are now more common than ATMs, post boxes or public toilets.