Grattan Institute proposes AU$500 loss limit in Australia

The Grattan Institute, a think tank in Australia, has become the latest body to weigh in on the debate surrounding gambling in the nation. Australians have been experiencing some of the largest gambling losses of any nation and opposing views have clashed on a range of issues.

Grattan Institute urges AU$500 loss limit right way

A touted TV gambling ads ban has proved a near-miss, and the cashless gambling trial in New South Wales ended up misfiring and railing opposition leaders. Now, the Grattan Institute believes that there is a way to protect consumers.

In its report, "Better bet: How Australia should prevent gambling harm," the Grattan Institute argues that imposing a mandatory loss limit would be the best way to protect players and that the government must consider this seriously if it wants to be effective in dealing with gambling-related harm.

Poker machines and online gambling must both come with a proposed AU$500 loss limit, which would immediately lock out players out of gaming, unless they can prove that they can financially afford to continue playing and suffer bigger losses.

This measure has been hotly contested in other jurisdictions such as Sweden, the UnitedKingdom, and Germany, with many industry types observing that the suggestion violated player privacy and added friction to the onboarding process.

The UK Gambling Commission, the UK’s gambling watchdog, has insisted that its so-called affordability checks would be frictionless. The Grattan Institute similarly said that this measure would have to come as part of a multi-pronged push which does include the ban of gambling ads.

According to the Grattan Institute, the average Australian adult is losing $1,635 a year to gambling, which is way ahead of the $809 reported for their peers in the United States or New Zealand, where losses are trailing at $584 per adult person.

The Grattan Institute's own boss, Aruna Sathanapally, has urged the government to seek a resolution to the persisting problem of gambling-related harm in the country and not be shy of acting decisively. She further stressed the risks that people face when they spiral deeper into gambling-related harm and debt:

"Gambling products are designed to be addictive and the consequences can be catastrophic: job loss, bankruptcy, relationship breakdown, family violence, even suicide."

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Criticism of the government’s indecisiveness has been mounting, although to speak the truth, there have been meaningful measures passed already. A national self-exclusion program has been hailed as a success, and the implementation of a credit card ban is chugging along.

Yet, data from the UK suggests that a ban on credit cards is not necessarily going to stop the people who need protection the most from continuing to play on credit. Sathanapally said that loss limits would be a further safeguard, and appealed to the government to consider protecting people from losing their house or life to poker machines,

It doesn’t help that most of all poker machines are outside of casinos, meaning that they are more common than post boxes, public toilets, or ATMs. The report is meticulously researched and can serve to help lawmakers make better-informed, if somewhat hard, decisions.

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