Fewer punters, greater losses
Australians are not only the world’s biggest gamblers, they are also the biggest losers, according to information recently published by the government. According to that report, Aussie gamblers will reach a new high—or low—in 2015, and are on trend to lose AU$1,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.
From September 2014 to September 2015, Australians gambled away AU$24.1 billion (US$17.38 billion), a 6 percent year-on-year increase.
Though the losses are greater, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that fewer Australian are gambling; in fact, gambling rates plummeted from 2000 through 2014, from 80 percent of adults having gambled over the course of a year to just 64 percent.
“We’ve seen a drop in participation in gambling on a per-capita basis, but the expenditure on gambling hasn’t dropped,” said Australian Gambling Research Centre Manager Anna Thomas. “What we are seeing is a smaller group of people gambling more heavily.” Pokies are most popular, but online and sports betting are growing at the quickest pace.
Len Ainsworth, the Ainsworth Game Technology chairman who made billions manufacturing poker machines, told Fairfax Media the rise in gambling usually reflects a more buoyant economy. “Over the last 62 years that I’ve been in the business each year, every year the amount of money that goes into gambling is directly related to the state of the economy,” Ainsworth said.
In the parlance of a bettor, he added, “If the economy goes up 5 percent, you can bet the amount gambled will go up by that or even more.” However, according to Bloomberg News, the national economy grew just 2.5 percent from 2014 to 2015, 3.5 percent less than the increase in gambling.
Meanwhile, the Herald reports that Facebook, Google and Twitter say a proposal that block Aussie punters from accessing illegal offshore betting sites is a waste of time. An estimated $1 billion in illegal wagers is made each year, the government says. That figure led former New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell to explore a plan that would block those websites and/or bank transactions made by Australian bettors.
The tech giants responded with a joint statement saying there are “fundamental flaws and significant practical difficulties with any attempts to filter the internet, such that it may not be possible to automatically block content. Who would determine whether a service is illegal? Would entire websites be blocked if there are both legal and illegal services on the website?”
They added that the Australian betting and gambling industry “should not be looking to the digital industry to solve these problems,” but instead enforce its existing laws. They were joined in their opposition to O’Farrell’s plan by Australia’s biggest banks.
“Technology would be incomplete and haphazard as it would only apply to direct electronic funds transfers, not payments made via proprietary networks or alternative payment methods,” said a statement from the Australian Bankers Association. “The ABA does not support intervention in the banking and payments system as an effective way to regulate online wagering and gambling.”
