AUSSIES DISAGREE ON PROBLEM GAMBLING STUDY

22 June 2007

2.8 percent research figure is too high says IGA

The Australian media are reporting on a research study into problem gambling which has ignited a disagreement between the organisation that commissioned the study, the Independent Gambling Authority and the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies which carried it out.

The study found that 2.8 percent of the population are problem gamblers and that expenditure on gambling has increased more than 400 percent in 25 years.

But the head of the Independent Gambling Authority, Robert Chappell, has backed previous research that puts the number of problem gamblers at 1.6 percent of the population. "The number that's been produced is derived from economic indicators that are not indicators of problem gambling but which are indicators that are thought to track closely to it," he said.

"Now clearly those matters are going to have to be re-evaluated but the report itself, the reliability of that model is highly conditional and based on a number of assumptions holding true."

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