New Australian research has found that risky parental gambling is associated with poorer physical health, mental health and educational outcomes among children, highlighting the need to recognise gambling harm as a child health and family wellbeing issue.
The Australian National University (ANU) study, funded through the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Gambling Harm Prevention and Mitigation Fund, combined longitudinal data from two major nationally representative Australian population studies with interviews with ACT gambling support, child and family service providers.
Across the two longitudinal datasets, risky parental gambling was consistently associated with poorer outcomes for children across the country, including poorer physical functioning, mental health and emotional wellbeing, and lower school engagement.
Lead researcher Associate Professor Aino Suomi, Director of the ANU Centre for Gambling Research, said the findings show that the harms associated with gambling could extend well beyond the person who gambles.
"Children have largely been invisible in the way we think about gambling harm. They are often grouped together with 'affected others', but children are uniquely dependent on their parents and on the stability of their family environment," says Associate Professor Suomi.
"Our findings show that when parents gamble excessively, the consequences for children are evident in multiple domains - their mental and physical health, their relationships and their engagement with school."
The study found that these impacts were not simply a direct consequence of gambling itself.
Financial hardship amplified the impacts of parental gambling leading to even poorer child outcomes, alongside disruptions to parenting and parent-child relationships.
Positive parenting and strong parent-child relationships were important protective factors.
"What is particularly important is understanding how the harm reaches children," Associate Professor Suomi said.
"The impacts go beyond money. Financial stress and parents being preoccupied by gambling can lead to changes in parenting and strain on parent-child relationships, which can in turn alter the whole family environment in which a child is growing up."
The second component of the study focused on gambling-specific and generalist child and family services within the ACT.
It found that parental gambling and its impacts on children can also be difficult for services to identify.
Practitioners described gambling-related harm as often hidden by stigma and shame and overshadowed by more immediately visible concerns such as family violence, mental health difficulties and alcohol and other drug use.
However, the research also identified substantial strengths within the ACT service system and practical opportunities to improve responses without creating entirely new services.
These include increasing awareness of the impacts of parental gambling on children, incorporating appropriate enquiry about gambling into existing family assessments, providing practitioners with practical guidance, and strengthening collaboration between gambling, child and family, financial counselling and other services.
"We don't necessarily need a new service system," Associate Professor Suomi said.
"The ACT already has a highly skilled child and family health workforce. The opportunity is to make gambling more visible within the work these services are already doing and to ensure that children are recognised as affected by gambling in their own right."
ACT Minister for Gaming Reform, Health and Mental Health, Dr Marisa Paterson, said the research highlighted the importance of recognising gambling harm as a broader health and wellbeing issue.
"This ACT Government-funded research provides important new evidence about how gambling harm can affect not only individuals, but the health and wellbeing of children and families.
"Understanding these impacts is an important part of a public health approach to gambling harm. By identifying where and how children may be affected, we can strengthen prevention, support earlier identification of harm, and ensure families are connected with appropriate support."
Read the research: Risky Parental Gambling and Child Wellbeing: Evidence-base for policy, harm prevention and service coordination
This project was funded through the ACT Gambling Harm Prevention and Mitigation Fund.
