The gambling industry argues that severe gambling addiction affects only a small minority. However, a person experiencing problem gambling typically harms five other people.
It’s crucial not to overlook a much broader reality of harm, said Australian gambling researcher Dr. Matt Browne of Central Queensland University in an April 2026 interview with GamblingHarm.org.
Browne’s research has changed how policymakers, academics, and public health advocates see the “network effects” of gambling harm, which extend beyond the gambler to affect spouses, children, friends, workplaces, and communities.
Browne explained that the key question is not just how many meet the clinical threshold for problem gambling at a point in time. What’s also critical is how many others are harmed as a result, how much revenue the industry generates from affected individuals, and why governments allow a business model dependent on excessive losses.
How Many People Can One Gambling Addiction Harm?
Browne is known in part for research estimating how many people are affected by someone else’s gambling problems. He co-authored a widely-cited 2017 study on the topic. Experts, such as the World Health Organization, still consider it a key study nearly a decade later.
Thanks to his research, a commonly cited statistic is that a person with a gambling problem typically harms six others. But Browne’s more recent research shows the number is actually slightly lower. It’s closer to five others harmed per person with a gambling issue.
“I’m reasonably confident about it being more around five for people with full-blown gambling problems,” Browne said, expressing skepticism about higher estimates such as 10.
Why The Industry’s 1-2% Defense Falls Short
If one person’s problem gambling harms five others, then the industry’s “only 1-2%” claim weakens as a defense. Gambling harm is widespread, not limited to one individual.
“You have to think of it as like a network,” Browne said. “You have a whole bunch of nodes, a whole bunch of arrows out there in the population.”
That network includes people with gambling problems, people harmed by someone else’s gambling, and people who fall into both categories.
“The most serious harm is transmitted through family and close friend networks,” he said.
Harm Begins By Losing Money
Browne said public discussions of gambling harm are sometimes too abstract. These harms include emotional distress, relationship breakdowns, work disruption, and shame. The list is long.
Gambling harm fundamentally begins with financial loss. It starts here, not somewhere abstract.
“What causes it is excessive losses,” Browne said. “That causes almost all gambling harm.”
That makes gambling different from many other addictive products, he argued.
“With gambling, the mechanism of harm is the financial losses,” Browne said. “The providers are actually incentivized for you to lose as much as possible because your loss is their gain.”
Browne said this is why many other harms follow in a “domino effect.”
Gambling Harm Can Affect Generations
Browne also said gambling can have intergenerational consequences. Severe gambling harm can destroy the financial path of an entire family.
“If the gambling problems are severe enough, they can derail an entire financial trajectory for a person and their family. It can take you out of the middle class and put you into the struggling class,” Browne said.
Such harm can influence children’s futures for decades, shaping life opportunities like access to university.
There is also a cultural transmission of gambling. Browne compared it to drinking culture, where habits and risks can be passed from adults to children.
“There is clustering at multiple levels—within families, friend groups, and communities,” Browne said.
In short, gambling harm often clusters in families and communities already facing problems.
Is The U.S. Repeating Australia’s Mistakes?
According to Browne, the United States is now experiencing something Australia has already seen: rapid gambling expansion driven by online and mobile access.
Australia has long had widespread access to electronic gambling machines, known there as “pokies.” More recently, online sports betting has grown there as well.
The U.S. historically had a more restrictive gambling environment. That changed rapidly after the expansion of legal sports betting in 2018.
Browne described the U.S. as “a fresh untapped market” for the industry.
“You’re going to have this wave of quite serious problems,” he warned. “There is a lack of awareness that this has happened before.”
Once gambling becomes normalized and politically entrenched, it is difficult to reverse.
“It’s very hard to roll stuff back and regulate it once you’ve let it in,” Browne said.
Gambling Taxes Are Not Free Money
State governments often see gambling expansion as an easy source of tax revenue. Legalize more gambling, tax the operators, and fund public programs.
Gambling tax revenue comes directly from losses, often from those suffering the most harm, making the idea of “free money” deeply misleading.
“It’s a regressive tax levied mainly on a small, vulnerable section of the population,” Browne said.
The social costs eventually come back to the public.
“It’s a classic case of externalizing costs,” Browne said. “When you’re taking money from the most vulnerable people, the benefit in terms of extra expenditure is going to be intrinsically outweighed by the social costs.”
What The Industry Doesn’t Want to Answer
Browne said the gambling industry’s “1-2%” talking point ignores where the money comes from.
He said studies have estimated that revenue from people with gambling problems varies by product. But for sports betting, electronic gambling machines, and casino-style games, the numbers are stark.
“When it comes to sports betting or electronic gambling machines, casino-type games, it’s more than 50%,” Browne said. A small group of harmed users drives much of the industry’s revenue.
“The key question to ask the industry is what percentage of your revenue comes from people with problems,” Browne said. This is the question U.S. regulators should be asking online sportsbooks and online casino operators right now.
Not how many customers set voluntary deposit limits or how many “responsible gaming” emails were sent.
Why ‘Responsible Gambling’ Policies Often Fail
Browne said the most effective gambling protections are not mysterious.
“It’s not rocket science,” he said. “It’s not that complicated.”
The measures that would work are the ones that limit financial harm. That is exactly why the industry and governments often avoid them.
“The only measures that would help would be ones that limit excessive losses,” Browne said, emphasizing these losses are crucial to the industry’s business model.
If gambling were made safer by preventing excessive losses, it would stop producing the same level of profits and tax revenue. The risk to revenue is what blocks reform.
“There is no appetite from the government or industry to do anything that would actually work,” Browne said. “There is a lot of appetite for doing things that sound good or look good.”
One example Browne gave was a mandatory gambling card or account-based system with compulsory limits. A person could gamble up to a reasonable cap, and then they would be stopped.
“That would absolutely work,” Browne said. He said recreational gamblers would barely be affected.
And that, he said, is why such reforms face so much resistance.
“It’s hard not to be cynical that the only reason for not doing it is that you actually don’t want to interfere with the revenue stream,” Browne said.
Modern Gambling Is Not Just Harmless Human Nature
Industry defenders often argue that gambling has always existed, pointing out that people have rolled dice or played gambling games for thousands of years.
“Where I push back is that gambling in its present form today is not like rolling dice or playing cards with your friends,” Browne said.
Modern gambling is different because it is highly engineered and marketed.
“It’s analogous to highly refined cocaine,” he said, “designed and marketed at multiple levels in a very efficient extractive kind of industry.”
The public-health argument is about reforming an industry that uses technology, data, advertising, and constant access to extract money from vulnerable users.
Gambling Harm Is a Public-Health Issue
Browne’s interview with GamblingHarm.org makes clear that gambling harm cannot be reduced to one person’s bad or irresponsible choices.
The harm spreads through networks and can damage families and communities.
The issue is not simply whether 1% or 2% of people meet a narrow definition of problem gambling at a specific moment in time. Public health reform must focus on how many people are hurt over time and how much money the industry extracts from those least able to afford it.
Other countries, such as the U.S., can learn from Australia’s mistakes. Policymakers should start viewing gambling harm as a predictable consequence of policy choices.
