An Australian government-sanctioned report has identified what it calls a ‘surge in gambling participation and harm’ over the past six years requiring urgent regulatory action.

This could spell tricky times ahead for Australia’s various gambling operators, with potential new compliance considerations on the horizon as PM Anthony Albanese’s government takes criticism from the backbenches.

According to the Australian Gambling Research Centre’s (AGRC) National Gambling Prevalence Study Pilot, over 65.1% of Australian adults gambled in the 12 months before October 2024, with 3.9% regularly participating in some form of gambling.

The most popular activities were lotteries, played by 52.7% of the population, followed by instant scratch tickets at 24.5%, poker machines at 19.8%, horse racing betting at 17.8% and sports betting at 12.5%.

Similar to the UK, Australia gauges gambling harm based on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), based on responses from a survey. The country’s gambling harm rate is much higher than the UK, however.

An estimated 2.6% of Australian adults are considered at high risk of gambling harm, with a PGSI score of eight or more. In the UK, 0.3% of people are considered at risk of gambling harm – and the prevalence of it in Australia is causing some political discontent.

The risk of harm among young adults is of particular concern to some. The AGRC’s report put the rate of high-risk gambling at 3.1% in the 18-24 age group, more than the average, and 17.8% of regular gamblers aged 18-24 were deemed as high risk.

Perhaps the most worrying figure for the Australian industry, government and treatment stakeholders is the national economic loss, with the AGRC stating that $32bn is lost annually by Australian’s on legal gambling. 

This is earmarked as the largest per capita loss of any country in the world, a figure that will undoubtedly put more pressure on Albanese’s Labor government to come to a conclusion on gambling regulation.

Gov’t promises

Australian gambling regulation has been a political talking point for some time now, with a parliamentary inquiry into its societal impacts launched back in 2022 and leading to a number of recommendations.

This report, christened the Murphy report after the late MP Peta Murphy who penned it, contained 31 recommendations for the regulatory future of Australian gambling. This included gambling-harm reduction regulations, a harm reduction levy and an ombudsman.

Perhaps most significant was a recommendation that gambling advertising and sponsorship be significantly curbed. Albanese had previously committed to a package of gambling reform, but this was shelved back in November 2024 ahead of the May 2025 elections.

Now that Labor is firmly back in power in Australia with a strong majority, pressure is mounting on the government to make good on its gambling reform promises. The Greens have been particularly critical of Labor, while Albanese has maintained that a blanket ban on gambling advertising could be difficult to implement.

Amidst this political debate, the ARGC has recommended that Australia consider gambling as a public health issue – an argument many in the British betting sector will be all too familiar with. 

The parallels between Australia and the UK on this are very blatant, with various politicians in the latter calling for a similar readjustment in how the government treats gambling, while many of Murphy’s recommendations are strikingly similar to the UK’s Gambling Act Review White Paper.

“This underscores the need to treat gambling as a major public health issue requiring a coordinated public health response,” the ARGC’s report concluded. “Any policies seeking to address gambling harm should consider the links between riskier gambling and mental health, intimate partner violence and financial stress. 

“To safeguard vulnerable individuals and communities, policy reform needs to keep pace with the evolving risks posed by gambling. Gambling trends and related harms should be closely monitored with data from a routine methodologically rigorous national gambling prevalence study. 

“This high-quality data must underpin policy decisions as well as the formative and summative evaluations of those policy reforms, in accordance with Australian Government directives.”

Global and local firms hold breath

Despite the regular political debates, Australia remains a target market for many – Japanese firm MIXI in particular seems keen to acquire local firm PointsBet, with its bidding battle against another Aussie firm, Betr, seemingly never ending.

It is also a key market for the likes of Flutter Entertainment (owner of Sportsbet) and Entain (owner of Neds and Ladbrokes Australia), as well as the market leader Tabcorp, and several other smaller local companies.

Firms of various sizes should keep a close eye on the government’s plans and the calls for Albanese to take gambling reform forward. 

The market will likely remain very valuable, but firms could soon find themselves with a range of new player protection, KYC and marketing considerations to factor in as Australia looks for new ways to address the extent of gambling related harm on its shores.