A Performance Audit of the Attorney-General’s Department and the Department of Human Services assessing their efforts to manage the compliance activities of gambling regulations has found the work to be ‘partly effective’
In his report Gambling harm minimisation, Auditor-General, Andrew Richardson assessed whether the Agencies effectively managed gambling regulatory compliance activities as well as help services to minimise gambling harm.
Mr Richardson said gambling was a legal activity that many South Australians enjoyed, but for some gamblers it had detrimental effects including financial harm and damage to personal relationships, health and wellbeing.
“Research estimates that around 10,000 South Australians engage in high-risk gambling and have experienced significant adverse consequences from it,” Mr Richardson said.
“For every person involved in high-risk gambling at least six other people may also be affected, he said.
“This means the number of South Australians affected by someone’s high-risk gambling could fill Adelaide Oval.”
Mr Richardson said gambling activity in the State was significantly higher now than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic with gambling generated taxation revenue of $531 million for the SA Government in 2021-22, an amount forecast to grow.
He said the Parliament enacted legislation that had the specific objective of minimising gambling harm, including legislation for the regulation of the State’s gambling industry and the Gamblers Rehabilitation Fund (GRF).
The Auditor-General made 11 recommendations relating to identifying gambling harm risks; using data and intelligence to inform risk assessments; identify time frames; test and review gaming machines to ensure they align with mandated requirements; and periodically test and review gaming machine attributes to ensure they align with mandated requirements to report a few.
The Auditor-General’s 94-page report can be accessed at this PS New link and the audit team for the report was Salv Bianco, Ken Anderson, Grace Lum and Ryan Tran.
