Dr Barb Kinder

Reforming Australia’s gambling industry has been one of the most high-profile political issues of recent years. Constantly in the headlines, there are high levels of public support to bring in tougher rules, including gambling advertising bans.
But the federal government has been reluctant to act. It has introduced its new gambling legislation to parliament, but the bill has been criticised as not going far enough to address the problem.
There’s been a lot of speculation as to why there’s been so little political appetite to bring in tougher measures. One key reason is governments have a clear conflict of interest: they rely on gambling revenue while also being responsible for reducing gambling harm.

This study traces how gambling in Australia changed from a simple form of leisure, enjoyed by all social classes in colonial times,to a billion-dollar industry driven by political and economic imperatives. Using a case study, it links vertical fiscal imbalance (VFI),caused by changes to the state-federal taxation structure, to the development of the New South Wales (NSW) government's ongoingreliance on gambling taxation, especially via the liberalisation of poker machines. It is argued that, as revenue sources tightenedafter the Second World War, the rush to poker machine gambling taxation accelerated, thereby creating a pattern of relying on suchincome to address state revenue shortfalls, that have seldom been linked to VFI and subsequent gambling policies. Drawing on arange of primary sources, including official Hansard records from parliamentary debates, media reports and industry publications,this analysis makes a unique contribution to the history of the political economy of gambling in Australia. Importantly, it aims toprovide new insights into the state's role in addressing current policy failures in reducing poker machine gambling harm in NSWand suggests that a change in federal–state funding arrangements is required to reduce VFI and prevent gambling-related harm.