Gambling Research

Credible knowledge about the prevalence and social consequences of gambling is fundamental to the development of informed policy and regulation. By bringing together some of Australia’s leading gambling researchers, the SSPR gambling research program aims to establish the Northern Territory as a leader in evidence-based gambling regulation in regional and remote settings.

Despite the identified need for such knowledge, both in the Northern Territory and in regional and remote areas more generally, there had been little sustained research in these areas prior to 2005 (with the exception of a report on NT gambling in 1996-97 by the ANU Centre for Gambling Research). This led SSPR to initiate and pioneer a research program that has commenced to produce methodically robust results that have been published in a number of reports and peer reviewed journals. The research team recently accepted editorial responsibility for the national journal Gambling Research.

The research program adopts perspectives from a range of social sciences, including human geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and cultural studies, to investigate how structures of supply and demand interact to produce gambling as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon. Specific areas of interest include gambling venues and their relationships to host communities, gambling by the Indigenous population, problem gambling and its measurement, gambling in remote towns, and policy and regulation.

Project leader: Dr Martin Young

Publications: Go the the SSPR publications page for an up-to-date list of peer-reviewed gambling research publications

Reports:

Reported Gambling Problems in the Indigenous and Total Australian Population - download from the Gambling Research Australia website
Destination-Style Gambling - a literature review that informed the Victorian Department of Justice' report Destination gaming [link error, please come back soon]
Northern Territory Gambling Prevalence Survey 2005
Indigenous Gambling Scoping Study: a summary
An Overview of Gambling in the Northern Territory

Fact sheets:


Problem gambling in the Northern Territory (.pdf)	Spatial analysis on non-casino poker machine expenditure in the Northern Territory (.pdf)	Electronic gaming machines in the Northern Territory (.pdf)

Gambling participation in the Northern Territory (.pdf)	Program fact sheet (.pdf)

Research Partners: Northern Territory Department of Justice, Northern Territory Treasury, Australian National University, CDU School of Australian Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and CDU School of Health Sciences.

Funders: Northern Territory Community Benefit Fund, Northern Territory Treasury, Gambling Research Australia, Australian Research Council.