00:01One of the key findings we found from this survey of parents was that parents were often
00:07engaging in a range of behaviours that may have encouraged gambling or kind of endorsed
00:12gambling as something fun and harmless to do.
00:14So some examples of things like that are probably relatively harmless things that we do with
00:19our children.
00:20So getting them to pick lucky numbers in Keno, buying scratch tickets for them.
00:24But there was also some behaviours that were probably less harmless.
00:28So things like asking children to play pokies with them or play a sports bet with their
00:35account.
00:36So there was sort of a range of behaviours and we showed that the accumulation of those behaviours
00:40and more of those sorts of parental behaviours increased the risk of parents reporting that
00:46the adolescent was engaging in risky levels of gambling.
00:49Yeah.
00:49And what does risky levels of gambling look like and at what ages?
00:53So the survey was focused on parents with teenagers, so 12 to 17 years of age.
00:59And the type of gambling we were interested in was just participation involved in gambling,
01:04which we know is a risk in and of itself.
01:06Early gambling is a risk factor for later problem gambling.
01:10But we're also interested in that sort of sense of needing gambling with something that's
01:15uncontrollable, that it's something that we might lie about or be secretive about.
01:21So that's sort of that problem level of gambling.
01:24Are parents, or the parents that you surveyed anyway, are they aware of how their behaviour
01:29might be impacting their children?
01:32One of the questions we asked parents was for them to rank some common concerns among
01:38parents of adolescents.
01:39So this were things like bullying, anxiety, depression, excessive screen time.
01:43And what we found when we asked parents to rank this list of possible concerns was that gambling
01:49came right down the bottom.
01:50So parents aren't perceiving problem gambling or gambling behaviour as something that they
01:55should be concerned about in their teenager.
01:59Whereas things that are probably more, you know, publicly communicated as being problems
02:05like bullying or early drug use or alcohol, these are the things that were most concerning
02:09to parents.
02:10But we do know from quite a large body of research that that early onset gambling during
02:16adolescence is a very big risk factor for later problem gambling in adulthood.
02:21How should gambling be spoken about or couched when having family discussions?
02:27Look, I think that it's really important to have kind of open conversations and communication.
02:32So on one side, parents might fall into that trap of talking positively about their gambling
02:38wins, talking about gambling as something that's sort of easy to do and something that's
02:43fun and socially acceptable and that you can low effort, you know, get big returns.
02:48So as much as possible, it's sort of parents avoiding that sort of narrative or that sort of
02:53communication and more using, you know, talking about the risks of gambling, talking about
02:58how gambling, you know, the low probabilities, I guess, of actually winning something and
03:04winning a big amount in gambling and how you do have to invest so much money to actually
03:08potentially get something back from your returns or from your investments.
03:13So just kind of talking more logically about that gambling and how it really works and the
03:19risks involved with it, I think is important and using, I guess, taking the teenager's lead.
03:24So if there's ads on gambling or if there's other discussions about gambling,
03:28using that as a conversation starter to find out what the teenager knows and thinks about
03:32gambling.
03:33So with those conversations that you might have and how you frame them as well as how
03:38you might react to any advertising that you might be seeing, did the research identify
03:42any other factors that could help protect young people further from harm?
03:47Look, one of the really interesting findings was that when we looked at the kind of co-gambling
03:54behaviour, so that was where parents and young people were gambling together, we found that
04:00was a very big, the more parents engaged in that co-gambling behaviour, the greater risk
04:04for gambling problems among adolescents.
04:06But the greatest risk was in fathers and sons.
04:09So fathers were more likely to engage in gambling with their teenage son than with their daughter
04:14or mothers with their children.
04:17So, I mean, what that suggests to us is that there's something going on there for fathers
04:23and sons around gambling.
04:24And that's something that we need to kind of look at further to unravel why fathers and
04:28sons might be more engaged in gambling, seeing something potentially as something that they
04:33do together.
04:34And it might be something around that, you know, that sense that fathers and sons, you know,
04:39often use sports and sports games to kind of bond, not all the time.
04:42But that could be a factor as well, is the context that that co-gambling might be happening.
04:48We know that there's current legislation that's being debated around gambling, advertising
04:52inducements, et cetera.
04:53We've heard some pretty compelling arguments from former gambling addicts throughout this
04:59week.
04:59How do you think government should respond with respect to reforms and children and gambling?
05:06Look, I'm really in favour of any reforms or changes to legislation that restrict gambling.
05:12Advertising, it's really prolific and our young people are exposed to it in a way they've
05:19never been exposed to gambling before.
05:21So once upon a time in a parent's home, parents did have a lot more control over those gambling
05:26influences.
05:27And now it's something that young people have easy access to.
05:31And even if they're not accessing it themselves, they're still getting those messages online
05:35and through gambling advertising and sports advertising that gambling is something fun, it's exciting,
05:40it's something you do with your friends and your mates.
05:42So look, I'm really in favour of those sorts of reforms because I think what we haven't
05:47understood yet is what these intergenerational impacts of this type of gambling advertising
05:52and gambling marketing might be for our young people who are moving into adulthood now.
05:58We'll see you next time.
05:58Here we go.
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