Betting companies will now be required to send clear statements of gambling wins and losses to their customers following the implementation of federal rules this month.
Key points:
- Monthly financial activity summaries are intended to help players make more informed decisions
- The federal government hopes this will result in problem gamblers wagering lower amounts of money
- A Gamblers Anonymous member who provides support to others sees it as a symbolic measure
With Australian game losses among the highest per capita in the worldare the new monthly activity reports intended to help players make better decisions by providing a clear picture of their spending.
“For some people, they might look at it and say, ‘Well, this is just too much – I think it’s confrontational and I need to do something about it,'” Financial Counseling Australia policy director Lauren Levin told ABC Radio Perth.
“It can lead to a phone call [a gambling support group] or ring one of the financial advice services or the national debt hotline and say, ‘I think I need to speak to someone about this.’
The change was among the recommendations of the 2018 National Consumer Protection Framework for Online Betting, which came up with 10 measures to address increasing social harms related to online betting.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfarethe country’s losses from legal gambling amounted to $25 billion in 2018-2019, creating serious consequences for the economy, mental health and relationships between gamblers and their families.
A study by the Behavioral Economics Team of the Australian Government found that people who received activity statements were more likely to reduce the amount of their bets, although this would not reduce the frequency of their bets.
A ‘tokenistic’ measure
Peter, whose full name has been withheld for privacy, is a former gambler who lost his career and his marriage before finding support through Gamblers Anonymous.
Peter is now providing support to others via Gamblers Anonymous, saying the change is a “tokenistic” measure that avoids taking more drastic and controversial steps that would have a greater impact.
“The single biggest impact we can have in Australia would be for governments to ban electronic gambling advertising in the same way they did for alcohol and cigarettes,” Peter said.
“They banned advertising for them because it was costing governments a fortune through the health system, whereas gambling is very much a hidden epidemic where the costs are largely borne by the player, the players’ families, the players’ employer, the people they steal from. .”
Peter said he had seen a “scary” rise in members who were young men betting on sports through phone apps.
He said providing activity statements could provide a “slight advantage” to new players who had not yet realized the scale of their spending.
“But for anyone who is an established gambler or who has an established gambling problem, it will have no effect at all,” Peter said.
Gamblers focus on winnings
University of Sydney School of Psychology Professor Sally Gainsbury is director of the Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic.
Her research on behavioral science and gambling helped inform the National Consumer Protection Framework that recommended the new rules around activity declarations.
Professor Gainsbury said her research into gambling behavior showed that “human bias” caused gamblers to focus on winnings and forget how much it was actually costing them.
She said activity statements were a positive first step, but more information was needed to highlight negative trends and encourage action.
This included, for example, showing a customer the percentage of their usage increase over a year or flagging customers if their usage appeared to be at a risky level.
She said the method was already used by utilities, which sometimes provided feedback on energy usage, such as a “smiley” for low usage.
“[It is] something that provides a next piece of information so customers can then mark the next step, [and] consider creating a deposit limit,” Professor Gainsbury said.
‘They just can’t tell’
Ms. Levin believed that the financial statements could be of benefit to people she had helped who were struggling to keep track of their expenses.
“We start by saying, ‘Well, let’s look at your income, at your expenses. With gambling, how much? How much do you think you’ve lost?'” Ms. Levin said.
“And with online betting, they just can’t tell.”
She said before the change, activity statements were usually provided only on request and most companies would provide a list of single line transactions rather than a graph, table or “bottom line” figure.
Responsible Betting Australia said it supported the provision of activity statements and also ran an advertising campaign encouraging Australian players to set deposit limits.
