Australia, the world's gaming superpower

SydneyThere's no special day for slot machines; any day is good. It's a Monday in February, and at the Seaford Hotel in Frankston—a suburb about fifty kilometers south of central Melbourne—a handful of regulars are playing after dinner. The machines are stacked in rows, each with a stool in front of them. The floor is carpeted, there are no windows or clocks, just four tables to keep the game going until late.

Seaford has 105 slot machines, and between 2022 and 2023, 15.6 million Australian dollars (8.7 million euros) were spent there—an average of 42,637 dollars a day (about 23,845 euros). This is equivalent to the average salary in Frankston. "Australia has the highest per capita gambling ratio in the world," notes Lisa Russell, professor of applied microeconomics at RMIT, "and being the biggest gambler means being the biggest loser."

According to a 2023 survey by the Australian Gambling Research Centre, 73% of adults participated in some form of gambling in the past 12 months; millions of dollars (€13.976 billion).

"It's been part of the culture since the early colonial years," notes Alex Blaszczynski, emeritus professor at the University of Sydney. "Horse racing, for example: the Melbourne Cup is a public holiday. It all normalizes gambling behavior, in contrast to what happens in other countries where the structure is completely different."

There are more than 185,000 slot machines nationwide, and New South Wales, the successor state to the first British penal colony, accounts for almost half of the machines in hotels and clubs. Charles Livingston of Monash University's School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine points out that the "ineffective, self-regulatory" legislation allows these establishments to operate as casinos with machines designed to place a bet every 2.5 seconds.

"Across Australia, there are many people who are on the cusp of having a gambling problem," says Russell, who points out that when a social activity becomes repetitive and addictive for a segment of the population, it must be addressed from a public health perspective. In fact, recent research from the University of Melbourne indicates that up to 105,000 Australians in a country with a population of 26 million could be at high risk of harm stemming from gambling addiction, with financial and mental health consequences, but most importantly, for their families.

In Professor Blaszczysnki's opinion, gambling addiction is invisible; it cannot be seen in hospitals, schools, or on the street, even though it may affect 1% of Australian adults. "The government earns significant revenue from gambling taxes; therefore, if they restrict gambling, they are reducing their revenue," he asserts. In the 2022-2023 fiscal year alone, the sector generated $31 billion in corporate profits (€17.33 billion), which represents €9 billion in taxes.

The rise of sports betting and online gambling has prompted Conservatives and Labor to agree to a parliamentary inquiry commissioned by Labor MP Peta Murphy, the MP for the division that includes Frankston. "Only providers, sports leagues, and the media stand to gain from the current situation," Murphy stated in her final report. The committee concluded that almost half of Australians bet on racing or sports, and that up to two-thirds of them were at risk in a country where per capita bets are around €853 per year. The report includes 31 recommendations, including national legislation, interventions to reduce risk, or the elimination of advertising and sponsorship in sports for three years. However, most of the recommendations have not been implemented, and independents and Greens are questioning Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, who in 2022 accepted donations from Sportsbet during the election campaign and who was invited to dinner at a luxury restaurant on her gala night by Responsible Wagering Australia, the sector's main lobbyist.

Nor does Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appear to have any interest in incorporating all of the Murphy Commission's recommendations. Albanese replied to a parliamentary question that "almost 70% of gambling harm comes from slot machines," citing a figure that does not come from any government agency or university. That 70% figure appeared in a newspaper article by Peter V'landys, chief executive of the National Rugby League, head of an organization that, according to the press, earns about $50 million per season from sports betting. V'landys, who, as revealed by theAustralian Financial Review He lobbied the Prime Minister to repeal the ban on advertising and sponsorship in sport, and has an excellent relationship with Albanese, who invited him to a gala dinner at the White House during Joe Biden's presidency.

Charles Livingstone, professor and member of the WHO's Expert Group on Gambling and Gambling Disorders, laments that slot machine clubs and hotels, as well as large betting houses, have so much political influence: "They hire former politicians, they have enormous access to the political system, and they use it to secure their fortunes."

In one of his reports on the colony of New South Wales in 1822, John T. Bigge asserted that convicts and freedmen loved to gamble, even gambling for food rations; an activity that later became part of the identity of the working classes. But as John O'Hara points out in his doctoral thesis on the history of gambling, the great "crime" of convicts and the disadvantaged was that the poor could not bear their losses, as is still the case today in suburbs like Frankston.