What help is available for someone struggling with gambling?

The National Gambling Helpline operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on 1800 858 858. Gambling Help Online (gamblinghelponline.org.au) provides free, confidential counselling by phone and chat. Cognitive behavioural therapy is the best-evidenced treatment for gambling disorder and is available through some public mental health services and private psychologists under a GP Mental Health Care Plan.

Should I screen for gambling problems during a routine GP visit?

Brief screening is reasonable when patients present with financial stress, depression, anxiety, or relationship and family conflict — all of which co-occur commonly with gambling disorder. A simple open question opens the conversation. The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) is a validated nine-item tool that can be self-completed in the waiting room if a problem is suspected.

Gambling's reach into young lives is wider than most parents realise

What just happened

Writing in MJA Insight+ this week, Associate Professor Charles Livingstone from Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine sets out the evidence base for gambling harm in young Australians — and why the federal government’s new advertising reforms, due in January 2027, matter but probably won’t be enough.

The hook is familiar: children watching Saturday afternoon sport are watching gambling ads. The implications of that — neurobiological, clinical, and social — are less familiar, and the piece brings them into focus.

The felt acknowledgement first: this is a topic many people mentally file under “problem gamblers” and then move on. The evidence suggests the story is more widely shared than that. More than one in twelve Australian adults experience gambling harm. The rate among young adults who use poker machines regularly is far higher. And the harm runs well beyond finances — depression, family violence, crime, and suicide are documented endpoints of gambling disorder. It touches families in ways that don’t always announce themselves as a gambling problem.

Both-and

What the data says about risk in under-34s

Livingstone cites a Victorian population gambling and health study as well as Australian Institute of Family Studies data on how gambling affects young adults. The numbers are striking: approximately 90% of Australians aged 18–34 who use poker machines regularly experience gambling-related harms. Each additional infection episode — sorry, wrong post — each additional gambling behaviour amplifies the risk.

The harms documented include loss of discretionary spending escalating to loss of family homes, depression and anxiety, relationship breakdown and divorce, family violence, and — at the severe end — significant increases in suicide risk. These are not rare outcomes in the most affected subgroups. The Australian Institute of Family Studies research shows that parental gambling correlates with higher rates of family violence, conflict between parents, and child abuse and neglect — meaning gambling harm extends to children who are not themselves gambling.

The neurobiology: why young brains are more vulnerable

The piece does something useful in grounding the public health concern in biology. Adolescents and young adults are not simply adults who make worse decisions — their brains are structurally different in ways that affect risk. The prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control, long-term thinking, and assessment of consequences, is not fully developed until the mid-twenties.

Livingstone notes that adolescent brains show heightened dopamine responses to unpredictable rewards — precisely the mechanism that gambling products are designed to exploit. The variable-ratio reward schedule used in poker machines is the same schedule that makes the response hardest to extinguish. Young people exposed to normalised gambling advertising during these developmental years are being reached at the window of maximum neurobiological vulnerability.

This is not a framing that excuses adult gambling choices — adults are responsible for their own decisions. But it does explain why the age at which someone is first exposed to gambling advertising and gambling environments significantly shapes their risk of developing disorder.

The policy response: reforms in January 2027

The federal government has legislated advertising reforms that take effect in January 2027. The key changes: a ban on gambling advertising during live sports broadcasts, a maximum of three ads per hour during the 6 am to 8:30 pm window, restrictions on stadium logos and celebrity endorsements, and a “triple-lock system” for online and streaming services.

Livingstone identifies these as meaningful but insufficient. The Murphy Report — the federal parliamentary inquiry that underpinned the reforms — recommended a full gambling advertising ban across broadcast and online media. What was legislated is partial. After 8:30 pm, advertising volumes remain unrestricted. Online advertising, outside the triple-lock system’s coverage, continues largely unchecked.

Whether the partial reforms will meaningfully reduce young people’s gambling exposure — or primarily shift the exposure to late-night and digital channels — is a legitimate contested question. The gambling industry has historically demonstrated significant capacity to adapt to regulatory constraint.

What the treatment landscape looks like

Cognitive behavioural therapy is the best-evidenced treatment for gambling disorder. Most affected individuals don’t seek help — stigma and shame are named as the primary barriers. The National Gambling Helpline (1800 858 858) and Gambling Help Online are available nationally and provide free, confidential access to counselling. These are low-barrier entry points for people who are not yet ready to seek formal mental health care.

My two cents

If you have children who watch live sport, you are raising them inside a gambling advertising environment that is — for this final month — unrestricted in the 6 am to 8:30 pm window. After January 2027, live-sport broadcasts change. The digital and late-night landscape does not.

The practical things are small but worth doing: talk to your children about what the ads are actually selling, in the same matter-of-fact way you might talk about alcohol ads or junk food. Encourage enjoyment of the sport for itself. The Gambling Help Online site has resources designed for parents.

For GPs: gambling harm is something to screen for when a patient presents with financial stress that doesn’t have an obvious economic explanation, depression or anxiety that is responding poorly to treatment, or relationship conflict that is circling around money. It often sits quiet in the room until a direct, non-judgmental question brings it into the open.

Verdict: yes — the January 2027 reforms are worth understanding, the neurobiology of young people’s gambling vulnerability is well-evidenced, and the GP role in brief screening is practical and low-cost.

If you need support now: Lifeline is available 24/7 on 13 11 14 (call or text 0477 13 11 14). Beyond Blue is 1300 22 4636. For First Nations crisis support, 13YARN is 13 92 76. The National Gambling Helpline is 1800 858 858.

Sources cited

Young people are being exposed to gambling too early. Here’s what we can do. Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. MJA Insight+, 10 August 2026. https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2026/31/young-people-are-being-exposed-to-gambling-too-early-heres-what-we-can-do
Gambling Help Online. National counselling and support service. https://www.gamblinghelponline.org.au
Australian Institute of Family Studies — gambling and family wellbeing research. https://aifs.gov.au/resources/topic/gambling