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How many children are exposed to at-risk parental gambling in Australia? Results from a representative national sample

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2022.107305Get rights and content

Highlights

  • 6 percent of Australian parents with dependent children are classified as problem gamblers.

  • About 10% of all Australian parents have engaged in some level of risky gambling in the past year.

  • 4% of Australian families including almost 200,000 children are exposed to serious gambling harm.

  • Public health approaches to child wellbeing in problem gambling families need strengthening.

Abstract

Children of problem gamblers are at risk of harm, however, there are no population level estimates as to how many children are currently exposed to parental problem- and at-risk gambling. The current study analysed data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, a nationally representative survey, to derive the first ever national estimates of the proportion of problem, moderate, and low risk gamblers (as measured by PGSI) in the Australian parent population. It also reports how many children under 15 years of age in Australia are exposed to parental gambling across the gambling risk categories. The results show that 13.7% of all Australian families with dependent children are currently exposed to some level of gambling risk due to parental gambling, and nearly 4% of families with children are exposed to parental moderate risk or problem gambling. This corresponds to almost 200,000 children each year. The results and approach of this study will guide future examination of child wellbeing in families where parents experience problems with gambling. The results are discussed in the context of public health approaches to familial gambling harm.

Section snippets

Design and participants

The analysis in this paper used data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey: a large-scale nationally representative longitudinal survey. The HILDA Survey started in 2001, involves annual data collection, and seeks to interview all household members aged 15 years or older. In the initial wave (2001), households were selected via a multistage area-based clustered sample design and a household response rate of 66% was achieved. Annual re-interview rates are

Results

Table 1 shows Australian population estimates with 95% confidence intervals of the distribution of individuals across the four gambling risk categories. The table also presents the proportion of Australian individuals with and without dependent children under 15 years of age in their care across the risk categories. The large majority of Australians over the age of 15 did not experience at-risk gambling and 0.7 per cent experienced serious gambling problems in the previous 12 months. The

Discussion

This paper is the first to report the proportion of families and number of children exposed to at-risk parental gambling at the population level. The overall rates of gambling risk in the current study were similar to those reported internationally and in other Australian studies (Calado & Griffiths, 2016) and to those reported previously on the HILDA Survey (Paterson et al., 2020).

According to the current data, nearly 200,000 children in Australia were exposed to parental gambling at moderate

Limitations and future directions

Limitations of the study include the use of a cross-sectional snapshot from the HILDA Survey data, and a lack of information about child wellbeing in the current sample. It will be possible, however, to examine child outcomes longitudinally using the HILDA data when children described in the current analysis become eligible study respondents (when they turn 15 years of age). The methodological validity of the PGSI measure to accurately capture gambling harms – particularly at the lower end of

Conclusion

The current study presents the first analysis reporting the number of children in general population exposed to parental at-risk gambling. The findings significantly add on the understanding of the extent of gambling harm on population level and expand the knowledge about this particularly vulnerable group of affected others: dependent children. The large number of children exposed in this study is sufficient to justify the intensification of public health initiatives to reduce gambling harm in

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare in relation to this article. The 3-year declaration of interest statement of this research team is as follows: AS, NW, PB have received funding from multiple sources, including Australian government departments. AS has also received funding from the state and territory governments in Australia including Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation (through hypothecated taxes from gambling revenue).

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