A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Australia has a dreadful reputation as the world’s leading country for per capita gambling losses. Pokies, sports betting, racing, lotteries, casinos and all the other gambling products took A$32 billion in 2022-23. That’s an average of $1555 from every adult, and it’s growing every year. Increasingly, we’re aware of effects of these losses: Family breakdown [...]
Research report into the link between gambling and intimate partner violence Central Queensland University (CQU) have released a report about the link between gambling and intimate partner violence. This qualitative study investigated the relationship between gambling and violence by men against their female intimate partners. Please disseminate as widely as you can to raise awareness [...]
The video game monetisation strategy termed 'loot boxes' have come under fire from gamers and mental health organisations alike, but rarely from an organisation as well-known or respected as Britain's NHS. Claire Murdoch, the mental health director of the NHS, has called for the practice to be banned over concerns that it sets up children [...]
Ooshies, the plastic collectible toys Australian supermarket chain Woolworths is using to lure shoppers to its aisles, aren’t just a bit of fun. They’ve been connected to a black market among Woolworths staff, frenzied online trading replete with death threats, chaotic crowds and and feral behaviour at supermarket swap days, and a shocking decapitation live [...]
The Gambling Commission study suggests that 450,000 children aged 11 to 16 bet regularly, more than those who have taken drugs, smoked or drunk alcohol. Bets with friends, slot machines, and scratchcards, were most popular. A campaigner on the issue, Bishop of St Albans Right Reverend Alan Smith, called it a "generational scandal". "Today's findings [...]
A pokies manufacturer with ties to James Packer’s Crown Resorts has launched the first applications in Australia to roll out a revolutionary new style of poker machine — “skill-based” gaming machines — aimed at attracting younger gamblers. The Victorian gambling regulator is understood to be working with the company towards a possible trial of the [...]
In June, the World Health Organization recognized video game addiction as a mental health disorder. It described the addition to digital and video gaming as “a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior” that becomes so extensive that it ‘takes precedence over other life interests.” In a dzBB interview on Sunday, IT expert Jerry Liao [...]
Children are being bombarded with gambling adverts in an ‘uncontrolled social experiment on today’s youth’, a Government report has warned. In a damning review, the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board said nine out of ten young people had been exposed to gambling adverts and marketing on TV and social media. As a result, gambling risks becoming [...]
Lisa Pont, a social worker at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, has heard plenty of skepticism about video game addiction and whether it’s truly a medical condition that should be classified as a disease, as the World Health Organization plans to officially do in a couple of months. “Some people think it trivializes other [...]
Lessons about the risks of gambling have been trialled in secondary schools in an attempt to address high levels of gambling among school-age children. Around 25,000 children in the UK are currently classed as problem gamblers, with one recent survey finding that one in six 11-to-15-year-olds admitted to gambling in the last week. Yet according to the cross-party thinktank [...]
