For John, the trouble started with a redundancy. For more than 20 years, he had been a credit manager at a large construction company. It was his responsibility to make sure people paid their accounts on time – not easy, but he was experienced and professional. Then he was unexpectedly made redundant.
The redundancy came not long after a traumatic set of circumstances on the job, during which John started struggling with depression and anxiety. The payout was substantial – approximately $175,000 – but the sudden end to his career deeply affected his already declining mental health.
“One night after taking antidepressants, sleeping tablets and having a few beers, I decided to jump online and thought I’d have a go at online gambling,” John says. “I lost the whole of my redundancy in two weeks.”
Aghast, John quickly reached out to a gambling support organisation, and then the betting company. The company, a household name, agreed to refund his money, and John self-excluded from their service. But that didn’t prevent him from signing up with a second company.
Two weeks later, he had lost it all again.
“This time, when I approached [the company] to get the money back, they told me to go and get stuffed,” John says. “That’s when it hit home that all the money was gone.”
Hiding losses is ‘good for business’
More than 150 betting companies operate online in Australia. From Sunday, the federal government is ordering all of them to send monthly activity statements to anyone who has laid a bet. The exception is Tabcorp, which requested and was granted another three months to comply.
The statements will clearly lay out how much money the account holder has spent, won and lost over the preceding six months, including an itemised transaction list.
Advocates for gambling reform have been pushing for the measure for years. It was one of the key minimum steps recommended by the 2018 National Consumer Protection Framework for Online Wagering in Australia, developed by the previous Coalition government in conjunction with the states. The activity statements were supposed to be introduced within 18 monthsbut were left lagging, along with a number of other measures, including a national self-exclusion register.
Lauren Levin, policy director of Financial Counselling Australia, says the activity statements will help gamblers make more informed decisions.
“We couldn’t imagine our banks not telling us how much we’ve spent in a month, but up until now gambling companies have withheld this critical information,” Levin says.
“Keeping people in the dark is good for business. The people I talk to rarely know how much they have lost. It is always very much higher than what they thought.”
Behavioural research published by the government in 2020 found that people who saw their statements were more likely to bet less, and to correct their misconceptions about the probability of winning or their personal luck. It also found that moderate-risk gamblers, those with low financial literacy or those with loss-chasing tendencies were significantly affected by seeing the statements, making them an effective way to help those most at risk of gambling harm.
Levin hopes the statements will be a way for people to start a conversation about responsible gambling limits.
“A starting point for financial counsellors is to establish how much money has been lost, but many of the online gambling companies resist providing this bottom line. They just refuse,” she says.
Tim Costello, from the Alliance for Gambling Reform, agrees.
“Most people don’t think they’ve got a gambling problem,” Costello says. “They think they’ve just had a couple of losses and they’re going to be fine.”
John says seeing the statements might have helped him, but it was just “one piece of a protection puzzle”.
A year or so after he lost his redundancy payment, John received a lump sum comprised of an insurance payout for the disability caused by his mental illness, and his superannuation, totalling about $460,000.
He opened accounts with two new online betting companies.
“I lost the whole lot again, over about 9–12 months. That all disappeared,” John says.
“The guilt was incredible. You’d say I’m never going to do this again. But with a lot of the companies … if I decided to have a couple of days off, I’d get a text at three in the arvo while I’m out walking the dog saying, ‘hey John, if you put in $5k today we’ll match that’. And you’d think, oh, if I don’t do that it’s like throwing money away.
“It was like they had you on a hook and they could just keep bringing you back, bringing you back.”
John tried, again, to make everything right. One of the companies said they would give him back $100,000 on the condition that he deposit it somewhere safe. So he opened an account with State Trustees and restricted it only to accommodation, utilities, medical and vet expenses.
“Basically, I was self-harming in a financial sense rather than a physical sense … I was a credit manager, I spent my whole life looking after other people’s money, and then went and did this to myself,” he says.
The gambling had repercussions for his family, which is why he asked for his surname not to be published. He lost the family home, his marriage disintegrated, and he’s struggled to find a way to explain what happened to his adult children. A constant support in his life is his labrador, whose presence, he says, has saved his life more than once.
“I was a good dad, worked hard and had a good job,” he says. “A few pretty ordinary decisions and circumstances, and it’s totally changed my life.”
Amanda Rishworth, federal minister for social services, said in a statement the Albanese government was “committed to reducing the prevalence of problem gambling in Australia” and that it was planning to implement the measures of the National Framework “without delay”.
Advocates expect one of those measures to be the national self-exclusion register. John says this would have helped him immensely, “so that when you do get your fingers burnt you don’t jump back into the frying pan with another mob.”
He also believes companies should force gamblers to set deposit limits and that, like credit, they should be measured against your ability to pay.
“One night alone, between 10pm and 3am, I was able to deposit and lose over $116,000 – making big deposits of over $20,000. It would have been red flags all over the place [for the company] but nobody got in touch,” says John.
“I put the money in there, I made that decision, but if these guys think they’re offering a safe and responsible gambling platform, well they’re not.”
Do you have a story? stephanie.convery@theguardian.com
• In Australia, Gambling Help Online is available by live chat and on 1800 858 858. The crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. The National Debt Helpline is at 1800 007 007.
• In the UK, support for problem gambling can be found through GamCare on 0808 8020 133. In the US, the National Council on Problem Gambling is on 800-522-4700. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counsellor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
