‘I wish I were dead’: The heartbreaking toll of Australia’s favourite pastime | Shaun Micallef ha…

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'I wish I were dead': The heartbreaking toll of Australia's favourite pastime

From sports betting to pokies, Australians love a punt. But for many people, it's the start of a dark spiral. (ABC: Anna Levy)

Australians are the world's biggest gamblers per capita, with $1,500 lost per adult each year.

In a nation that boasts gambling as a national pastime, about three in five Australians bet at least once a year, and one in five engage in risky gambling.

But beyond the statistics are deeply personal stories of addiction, loss and lasting harm.

We spoke to three people about the moment they realised gambling had changed their lives.

I only realised I had an addiction when I went to prison.

Shaun Micallef has dissected gambling’s dark arts – and it will leave you shattered

If you’ve watched a footy game on TV, flicked through a newspaper, listened to a radio or glimpsed the games and social channels that contemporary adolescents are glued to, you’ll know how pervasive and inescapable gambling has become in Australia today. The statistics around the $32 billion industry are alarming. Just for starters, Australians are the biggest gamblers – and losers – in the world per capita; 20 per cent of gamblers account for 80 per cent of losses; and in 2017, Australia had 0.3 per cent of the world’s population, but 2.5 per cent of its gaming machines.

While the fallout from gambling can be easily measured at a grassroots level, the machinations of the industry are complicated. Myths about “having a punt” are threaded into the national psyche. The proceeds of gambling fund elite sport – the Sydney Opera House even – all the way down to local clubs, social hubs and community events. Governments rely on gambling taxes to pay for essential services and are increasingly beholden to lobbyists, an egregious conflict of interest if ever there was one.

Shaun Micallef: Why I gambolled among the gamblers

I remember sitting at breakfast one morning when I was about 16 years old and blithely announcing to my parents that I would no longer be attending church with them on Sundays. 

My father looked up from his Rice Bubbles and told me in a firm voice that, on the contrary, I would be attending. End of discussion. My mother clucked her tongue and said, “Oh, how are we going to make him?” and crunched into her Ryvita.

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