There is a casino in your child’s pocket, and it’s time to talk about it

August 9, 2026 — 5:03am

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When you first become a parent, it’s astonishing how quickly you realise how many decisions you take for granted, and how much of your time you’ll have to spend explaining these things to kids so that they either don’t make the same mistakes, or don’t get themselves into trouble.

It starts with things like not touching hot stoves and waiting for the symbol to go green before crossing the road. But before too long those conversations take on a more serious tone as they move towards young adulthood – how to be safe online, drink responsibly, have healthy relationships, and why speeding behind the wheel of a car is never OK.

This week, though, it really hit home to me that there’s another conversation parents need to be having urgently with their children, and in particular their sons.

By now, most of us know that Australians lose more each year to gambling than any other country. But what many people don’t realise is how steep the rise in the amounts we’re losing, as well as the number of people gambling, has climbed in a relatively short period of time.

In the 12 months between March 2025 and March of this year, we lost $36 billion to gambling. That’s $1.3 billion more than the 12-month period prior, and $15.3 billion more than we lost in 2020.

Back then, around half of Australians said they’d had a punt at least once over the course of the year. By 2024, that figure jumped to two in every three people. While there’s nothing inherently dangerous with placing a wager occasionally, this rise does speak to just how normalised gambling has become in our culture.

We should be doing everything we possibly can to avoid putting boys more at risk, but........

© The Age