Study finds Australians don’t use gambling harm reduction tools

A study has found that Australians do not use gambling harm-reduction tools if they are not required to do so.

Australia.- A study by the University of Sydney’s Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic (GTRC) has reported that gambling harm minimisation tools implemented by the government have had little impact.

The research focused on self-exclusion and deposit limit tools. It found that the first tool affected online gambling behaviour but that players don’t use the tool if it’s voluntary.

As for deposit limits, 6,000 people who used the tool stuck to the limits for about a year, while one in four decided to change their betting limits to make them less restrictive. One in eight gamblers unsubscribed from the programme. 

Despite this, Sally Gainsbury, one of the study’s authors, said the self-exclusion and betting limit tools had proved to be successful.

She said the number of people who set a deposit limit for gambling increased after the introduction of the self-exclusion system. She added that the results could encourage authorities to take other measures to promote safer gambling behaviour.

In June, the New South Wales Office of Responsible Gambling launched “The Number that Changed My Life” campaign to tackle gambling harm.

It focuses on Vietnamese, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Hindi and Korean communities, supported by community engagement initiatives and will be presented in each community’s preferred language. 

The campaign was developed after a survey in February 2019 found that one in two adults in NSW gambles