By Cam Lucadou-Wells
People are more willing to report their drinking problem, mental health issue or affair than admit they have a gambling issue.
Such is the crushing stigma faced by gambling addicts, says Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation chief executive Shane Lucas.
During a meeting in Dandenong on 2 August, Mr Lucas heard the personal story of a counsellor’s family friend who took his own life.
Friends can’t be sure that it was the gambling problem that led him to his self-destruction. But they knew of the man’s deep inconsolable shame over his addiction.
“We have research that people would rather tell you anything than tell you they have a gambling problem,” Mr Lucas said.
The language of the gambling industry foists the onus directly on the gambler, Mr Lucas argues. Or in other words, if you have a gambling problem it’s directly your fault.
It minimizes the influence of other personal issues or that the person is under sway of an addiction, he says.
According to official 2018-’19 statistics, Greater Dandenong poker machines continue to reap about $119.3 million.
It equates to $910 lost per Greater Dandenong adult.
Greater Dandenong is fourth-highest in pokies losses in metropolitan Melbourne behind Brimbank ($143 million), Casey ($132 million) and Whittlesea ($120 million), and has the second-most poker machines in Victoria council areas (957).
The council area’s residents are also among the most socio-economically disadvantaged – and also vulnerable to gambling harm, Mr Lucas said.
Some of its many CALD communities were particularly vulnerable due to social isolation as well as the prevalence of local machines.
The VRGF doesn’t seek to ban pokies, but works towards reducing harm to the most vulnerable, such as funding SICMAA to reach out to gamblers in Springvale’s Vietnamese community.
SICMAA supported nearly 100 clients in 2018-’19, with a further 1200 taking part in group activities.
With VRGF funding, Connect Health and Community provided counselling to 1228 clients “at the pointy end” of harm in the south metro region.
The foundation is also looking towards campaigns against the “normalization” of gambling, such as sports betting companies.
Pokies is the province of an ageing demographic; sports betting and online gambling is attracting a younger crowd, Mr Lucas says.
As a parent, it strikes him home when he sees that online children’s games carry the same “architecture” as adult gambling sites.
A prevalence study report on the types of gambling will be released by October-November.
