Associate Professor Aino Sumoi is the Director of the Centre for Gambling Research. Photo: Tracey Nearmy/ANU.
Poorer physical, emotional and mental health and lower school engagement: these are the realities facing children whose parents engage in risky gambling behaviour.
New research from the Australian National University (ANU) has highlighted the need for gambling harm to be recognised as a child health and family wellbeing issue.
ANU Centre for Gambling Research director and lead researcher, Associate Professor Aino Suomi said the findings showed the harms associated with gambling could extend well beyond the person who gambled.
“Children have largely been invisible in the way we think about gambling harm. They are often grouped together with ‘affected others’, but children are uniquely dependent on their parents and on the stability of their family environment,” she said.
“Our findings show that when parents gamble excessively, the consequences for children are evident in multiple domains – their mental and physical health, their relationships and their engagement with school.”
The study combined longitudinal data from two major nationally representative Australian population studies, along with interviews with gambling support, child and family service providers.
Data indicated that about 14 per cent of homes with children under 15 years have at least one adult who gambles at “risky levels”, and this sharply increased between 2018 and 2022.
“This increase appears to be driven primarily by growth in online wagering within households, a pattern that is also reflected at the broader population level, although to a lesser extent, suggesting that online gambling is bringing gambling into family homes,” the research stated.
It found risky parental gambling was consistently associated with poorer outcomes for children across the country, including poorer physical functioning, mental health and emotional wellbeing, and lower educational outcomes.
Other adverse child outcomes included psychological problems such as depression, suicidal thoughts and anxiety, and exposure to elevated risks of family violence, direct abuse and neglect.
The study also found these impacts weren’t just a direct consequence of gambling itself.
The financial hardship that can be experienced due to risky gambling behaviour led not only to even poorer child outcomes, but also disrupted parent-child relationships and the adult’s parenting.
“Gambling problems are often associated with increased stress, emotional distress, and family conflict, which can disrupt caregiving and reduce parents’ capacity to provide supportive and consistent care,” the research stated.
“Parents experiencing gambling-related harm may be less emotionally available and less able to consistently meet their children’s emotional and developmental needs, contributing to poorer parent–child relationships and family functioning. At the same time, the stress and disruptions associated with gambling may make it more difficult for parents to maintain predictable routines and consistently enforce rules and expectations.
“Such disruptions to parenting practices can undermine children’s wellbeing.”
Whatever the risk, Associate Professor Suomi said positive parenting and strong parent-child relationships were important protective factors.
“The impacts go beyond money. Financial stress and parents being preoccupied by gambling can lead to changes in parenting and strain on parent-child relationships, which can in turn alter the whole family environment in which a child is growing up,” she said.
The ACT’s gambling-specific and general child and family services also examined the issue as part of the study.
It found parental gambling and its impacts on children could also be difficult for services to identify.
Practitioners described gambling-related harm as often hidden by stigma and shame, and overshadowed by more immediately visible concerns such as family violence, mental health difficulties and alcohol and other drug use.
“The hidden nature of gambling, together with competing service priorities and the complexity of families’ presenting needs, meant that gambling-related harms were often identified only after they had become more severe, or in crisis,” the research stated.
But it also showed strengths within the ACT service system and practical opportunities to improve responses.
“We don’t necessarily need a new service system,” Associate Professor Suomi said.
“The ACT already has a highly skilled child and family health workforce. The opportunity is to make gambling more visible within the work these services are already doing and to ensure that children are recognised as affected by gambling in their own right.”
Suggestions to improve responses included increasing awareness of the impacts of parental gambling on children, incorporating appropriate questions about gambling into existing family assessments, providing practitioners with practical guidance, and strengthening collaboration between gambling, child and family, financial counselling and other services.
If you or someone you know is experiencing gambling harm, help is available both for the person gambling as well as their family and friends.
For immediate free 24/7 anonymous support, call the Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 or visit Gambling Help Online.
You can connect with others with lived experience in Canberra through ACT Gambling Support.
