Gambling affects one in three Indigenous
Australians in the Northern Territory, Matthew
Stevens (pictured) has found.
Almost one-third of Indigenous people in remote areas of the Northern Territory are affected by gambling-related problems or they have family or close friends who are, according to research from Charles Darwin University’s School for Social and Policy Research (CDU).
The study compared the prevalence of gambling-related problems in people’s family and social networks for Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations of Australia, with a focus on the Northern Territory.
Research Fellow and statistician, Matthew Stevens analysed the results of two Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys, the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey and the 2002 General Social Survey.
Some 31 per cent of Indigenous people living in remote areas of the NT reported that they, their family, or close friends had been affected by gambling-related problems in the year before the survey, compared with 13 per cent living in non-remote areas. For the general NT population living in non-remote areas, the estimate was significantly less at 3.5 per cent.
The estimates varied across Australian states and territories. Thirty-six per cent of remote Indigenous people in Queensland reported “yes” to the same question, while it was less than 10 per cent in NSW, and 25 per cent for Indigenous people in remote Australia as a whole. Reported gambling problems were lowest for Indigenous people living in Western Australia, with just 3.5 per cent of people living in non-remote areas reporting gambling-related problems.
Mr Stevens stressed that the interconnectedness of Indigenous people might have exaggerated the results for the Indigenous population.
“Indigenous people living in remote communities probably have an increased chance of knowing someone with gambling problems or someone who has been affected by someone else’s gambling because of kinship systems and extended family networks,” he said.
But he said there was still ample evidence to show that gambling-related problems were significantly higher for the Indigenous population than for the non-Indigenous population throughout the country.
“Gambling is causing problems in the Indigenous population of the NT and other remote areas, but to what extent, we can’t be certain,” he said.
“It is unclear if problems are associated with card games in remote communities or with people travelling to larger service centres to participate in regulated forms of gambling. We also don’t know what types of problems people are experiencing. For example, the most common problem associated with excessive gambling is money shortages for essentials.”
Unexpectedly, the analyses revealed that the association between excessive gambling and other negative life events such as alcohol, drug abuse problems and events relating to personal safety (witness to violence, affected by abuse or violence crime, and trouble with police), were consistent for both the Indigenous and general populations of the Northern Territory.
Mr Stevens urged policy makers to make use of available evidence and to conduct more research to understand how much impact excessive gambling is having on communities and individuals, and the associated causes.
“An important difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is in the community context in which they live and gamble, and policy will need to target remote and urban Indigenous populations differently because of this. Further research into the relationship between unregulated (community card games) and regulated gambling is also needed for the Indigenous population,” he said.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.
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