You bet: households lose record $18.8b on luxury of gambling (Australia)
(source: SMH September 21, 2006)
You bet: households lose record $18.8b on luxury of gambling
Matt Wade September 21, 2006
AUSTRALIANS lost a record $18.8 billion gambling last financial year, the equivalent of almost 2 per cent of the national economy.
Households spent more per head on gambling each week ($17.60) than on fuel and maintenance for cars ($17), and almost as much as they spent on clothing ($18.50), unpublished Bureau of Statistics figures analysed by Commsec show.
The Commsec economist Craig James attributed the willingness of people to spend more on gambling to rising real wages and low unemployment. “People’s purchasing power is higher, so we have more money than ever to spend on luxuries, and gambling is one of the ways that people get enjoyment,” he said.
“People also have far more gambling options than in the past.”
Gambling losses increased 6.4 per cent in the year to June, he said.
A separate Bureau of Statistics survey of gambling businesses, released yesterday, said the industry’s net takings reached $15.5 billion in 2004-05. That equated to $996 for each adult, up from $901 in 2000-01, when the bureau last surveyed the gambling industry.
Gambling industry takings doubled in the decade to June 2005, the figures showed. Poker and gaming machines in clubs and pubs took $8.7 billion in 2004-05, more than half of all net takings.
Each of the nation’s nearly 200,000 poker or gaming machines took an average of $46,300, even after winnings were deducted.
The number of poker and gaming machines increased by more than 80,000 between 1994-95 and 2004-05.
Australia’s 13 casinos had gambling takings of $2.6 billion in 2004-05, while online gambling takings surged to $114 million from $73 million in 2000-01.
Mr James said households were spending a smaller proportion of their incomes on essentials such as food and clothing and more on discretionary luxuries such as gambling.
“The basics are soaking up a smaller proportion of our budgets these days and we have been spending more on things like scratchies,” he said.
Gambling takings were much higher in NSW than in other states, averaging $1196 per adult, compared with $490 in Western Australia (where there are relatively few poker machines), $725 in South Australia and $853 in Queensland. The average takings per adult in Victoria was $1134.
Gambling takings in NSW ($6.2 billion) and Victoria ($4.4 billion) accounted for more than two-thirds of the national total in 2004-05.
Gambling taxes and levies reached $5.63 billion in 2004-05, up from $4.43 billion in 2000-01.
Gambling-related taxes, which go mostly to state governments, grew by an average of 6.2 per cent a year between 2000-01 and 2004-05, the bureau said. Taxes represented 36.4 per cent of the net takings from gambling.
Taxes and levies on poker and gaming machines in clubs, pubs, taverns and bars accounted for 55.5 per cent of all gambling revenue.
Other sources of gambling taxes were lotteries, lotto-style games and football pools (17.2 per cent), Totalizator Agency Board (TAB) or totalisator betting (12.4 per cent), and casinos (11.1 per cent).
The NSW Government received $1.43 billion in gambling taxes in 2004-05 and is expecting to collect $1.67 billion this financial year.
However, it expects revenue to decrease slightly next financial year following to the introduction of smoking bans in clubs and pubs.
There were 76,848 people employed in the provision of gambling services, with about 60 per cent of those working in clubs and pubs, taverns and bars.
Date Posted: 20-Sep-2006
