Geoff Du Toit became addicted to gambling when the pokies came to Adelaide in 1994.

It took him more than 20 years to understand that he needed help — but, by then, it had impacted his family and his mental health.

“Relationship breakdown, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts are all part of that — people become disappointed in themselves, they become ashamed.”

He said going into debt could also worsen the situation.

“Everybody suffers,” he said.

Mr Du Toit said there were two major triggers for him to choose to gamble: having cash in his pocket, and the arrival of pay day.

Mr Du Toit ended up seeing a therapist and has now been in recovery for more than seven years.

He works as a peer worker, using his lived experience to help others work through their addictions.

“Give it a try, let go of the past,” he said.

But the Paris Olympics have sparked concerns about Australia’s gambling problem getting worse, especially with modern technology and phones making betting on the 2024 Games so accessible.

Young people hooked

According to the South Australian state government, most children or young people have never watched sport without hearing about the odds.

The government has chosen to highlight the problem to coincide with the Olympic Games, and said statistics showed that 30 per cent of children have gambled before the age of 18.

Statewide Gambling Therapy Service director Michael Baigent said the centre treated people from the age of 16, but admitted he was aware of people becoming hooked “much, much younger”.

“Events like the Olympic Games and big sporting events draw people to gamble. It’s a trigger for those who are at risk of gambling,” Professor Baigent said.

“The mechanisms that the gambling businesses have to recruit and maintain people involved with their gambling are very, very cunning — there are constant reminders, messages, noises, incentives, that all trigger people to gamble. It’s quite frightening.

“I’ve had patients talk to us and tell us that they can [gamble] in their home, they can do it on the toilet, they can do it when they go out, they can do it wherever.

“The harms we see in the people we try to help go from family problems [to] financial problems, occupational, criminal, cultural — there are many, many problems.”

In SA alone, more than $424 million was lost on sports betting in 2022-2023, the government said.

The gambling community participation rate has also risen from 36 per cent in 2021 to 41 per cent in 2023.

Professor Baigent said this came with dark consequences, with 4 per cent of suicides linked to gambling.

He said he was concerned those statistics could worsen during the Olympics.

Diversion programs

With sport embedded in Australian culture, more youth clubs have signed onto a community program to educate young people and reduce gambling rates.

It is part of a Here for the Game initiative run by the SA government.

Professional sports clubs such as the Adelaide Crows have also joined the movement.

Jake Mitchell — a junior basketball coach at Wings Basketball Academy — said he was pleased to be part of the initiative.

“We believe gambling has made a massive impact on our community and it’s our role as coaches to help … we know that as a younger age is probably when they’re most impressionable,” he said.

He said it was important for them to understand the implications of their actions to make better choices and know where to ask for help.

One in six addicted

South Australian Minister for Human Services Nat Cook said sports betting was risky.

“All of those companies are out there trying to work the algorithms on social media, TV … to get you to throw away your hard-earned cash,” she said.

She said one in six people had a gambling problem.

“We know that people lose money, they lose friends. Reach out to people if you think they may have a problem.”

She also said it was “un-Australian” for people to bet against their own team and wanted people to enjoy the thrill of the game, not the bet during the Olympics.

However, Ms Cook stopped short of committing to implementing stricter laws on gambling adverts.

“There’s been a senate inquiry underway on online gambling and we put a strong presentation asking them to consider what stronger regulations would look like,” she said,

She said a lot of the rules around gambling were managed federally but said there were challenges with applying bans.

“You can’t ban your way out of a social challenge,” she said.

“If there is an appetite from a federal point of view to apply more stringent regulation in the online gambling fear, we would support that.”