WA has less gambling harm than the rest of Australia. There’s one simple reason

Western Australia is a unique part of Australia in many ways. It gets a special deal on the distribution of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Its flora, fauna and cultural attributes are extraordinary.

And it has the lowest rate of gambling harm in the country.

Our recently published research on the gambling behaviour of Western Australians reinforces this.

It demonstrates that although Western Australians gamble as much as anyone else in Australia, they experience far fewer gambling problems.

Lessons from Western Australia

WA does not permit pokies (also known as electronic gaming machines) outside of a single casino in Perth. Unlike the rest of Australia, where pokies in pubs and clubs are ubiquitous, these social spaces in WA are pokie-free.

Western Australians, though, are keen lottery gamblers. But despite accounting for 10% of the amount spent on gambling in Australia, lotteries contribute around 1% of our gambling problems.

Pokies are a different kettle of fish: recent Australian research demonstrates poker machine gambling accounts for more than half of Australia’s gambling spend and a similar proportion of gambling problems.

Our analysis of data from the multi-year Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey shows overall gambling participation is higher in WA than in the rest of Australia (48% against 37%).

HILDA data also suggests Western Australians spend about the same as people in other states when it comes to gambling, but gambling problems in WA are about half those in other states.

The big question is why.

The pokie paradox

A 2023 paper found these differences can be explained by lower levels of pokie use.

We set out to confirm these conclusions and to use a multi-year dataset that allows us to differentiate gambling behaviour over time, and to estimate comparative participation, levels of gambling severity, and gambling expenditure across different products.

Different gambling products are known to have different harm profiles.

At the top are poker machines and casinos (including their online versions). Even people who gamble only on pokies (and many use multiple gambling products) are much more likely to experience problems than people who use only one other gambling product.

Wagering in both online and traditional forms is next on the harm scale. Lotteries are right at the bottom, along with bingo. This is now well established.

What matters is accessibility. In WA, pokies are not widely available – they are used by fewer people (2% compared to an average 9% in other states).

Pokie expenditure is also lower: Western Australians average a monthly spend of $2.83 compared to $11.44 elsewhere, while average lottery expenditure is higher ($28.70 monthly compared to $17.09).

But gambling harm in WA is significantly lower than other areas of Australia because so few people play the pokies.

What does all this mean?

There are several interesting implications of our study. The first is, the “architecture” of a gambling environment can make a huge difference to the gambling harm inflicted on a community.

Because pokies are high-impact products (fast spins can lead to impulsive gambling and they are particularly addictive and harmful), restricting access to them makes a huge difference to the gambling harm profile of communities.

As pokies are concentrated in areas of high disadvantage, having so many pokies in other states increases disadvantage in already disadvantaged communities. WA escapes this problem.

Can we ‘unscramble the egg’?

Today, pokie gambling is almost ubiquitous in Australia, and governments appear to have largely given up on serious reform proposals.

After major reforms were announced in Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria, all were subsequently deferred.

In 2010, the Gillard government attempted similar national reforms at the behest of independent MP Andrew Wilkie. These, too, were abandoned.

In all cases, the considerable power of the pokie lobby appears to have overwhelmed the original intentions of reforming governments.

This suggests unscrambling the egg of pokie-derived harmful gambling presents a major challenge – one for which few Australian governments appear to have much appetite.

Indeed, most of the significant reforms proposed by the Murphy inquiry into online wagering have also been brushed aside by the Australian government, although a few have been implemented in part.

Gambling reform is hard.

One of the strategies that some Australian jurisdictions are pursuing is to reduce the number of pokies in their jurisdiction.

On the surface, it seems the WA example supports this approach. Unfortunately, going from a lot of pokies to slightly fewer is not backed by evidence. A 2022 study using data from Italy and Finland indicated reductions in pokie numbers have to be very significant to reduce associated harms.

Tinkering at the edges would not do the job.

What are some other options?

If they can’t emulate WA, how can the rest of Australia modify accessibility to achieve reduced gambling harm?

Precommitment – the system proposed and abandoned by the Australian, NSW, Tasmanian and Victorian governments – may help to some degree.

Reducing hours of operation, especially after midnight would help.

Reducing the concentration, or density, of pokies in disadvantaged communities (if seriously done) may provide some benefits.

Nonetheless, the example of WA provides a salutary lesson as we encounter rapidly evolving gambling forms.