Gambling in Australia at an All-Time High

Australians are betting now more than ever, and the industry predicts that there will only be further growth of gambling in Australia as the years go on.

In Australia gambling news, the amount citizens are spending on gambling is at a shocking high. National accounts statistics revealed that Australian punters spent a record-breaking $6.5 billion in 2015’s September period, or around $1000 a year for every Australian. This is a 6.1% jump from 2014, an increase from the 3% average annual growth from the decade prior.

Even more shocking is that while the amount of money spent on gambling is increasing, the number of Australians actually playing has decreased sharply. Australian Gambling Research Centre manager Anna Thomas says that this is because there “is a smaller group of people gambling more heavily.” She also mentions the growing popularity of poker, sports betting, and Australian internet casinos.

Increase of gambling in Australia credited to inflation, online casinos

While the high numbers regarding gambling in Australia are shocking researchers, poker machine billionaire Len Ainsworth says that these are “natural” levels of growth. Explains Ainsworth: “There’s a very simple answer: 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. If the economy goes up 5%, you can bet the amount gambled will go up by that or even more.”

Ainsworth Game Technology chairman Len Ainsworth (Photo: Online Slots Australia)

”As they get more money or shall we say funds that they can spend, they will spend the same proportion of gambling as they do on everything else. There’s nothing surprising about these numbers going up 6% because I reckon we’ve had at least that much inflation over the period,” he adds.

The Ainsworth Game Technology chairman also mentioned the booming business of online gambling sites in Australia, saying: “We’re involved in social gaming and the number of people who spend money on games is only 10%. But the number of people we have as customers around the world is astronomical. We’ve got a huge number of people learning to gamble who’ve never gambled in their life for the most part and eventually, those people will try other forms of gambling too.”