Australia's Gambling Industries - Productivity Commission

• the number of relationship breakdowns attributed to gambling in the last 12
months (39 200);
• less the number that led to divorce or separation (3200);
• adjusted using the causality adjustment (80 per cent); and
• then doubled to take account of the other party involved.
This results in an estimate of 57 600 people adversely affected by a relationship
breakdown (excluding those involved in divorce and separation).
For a range of dollar values of the emotional distress caused by relationship
breakdowns (other than divorce and separation), the Commission has used the range
of numbers from the lower of the two compensation schedules — $5000 to $15 000.
This generates a lower estimate of the total costs of relationship breakdown of $288
million and a higher estimate of $864 million.
Emotional cost of divorce and separation
The following data have been used to estimate the emotional cost of divorce and
separation:
• 3200 for the estimated number of divorce or separations resulting from gambling
in the last 12 month (see above);
• adjusted using the causality adjustment (80 per cent);
• the average number of people in a household, based on survey results, of 3.3
people (including the gambler);
• for a lower estimate, a value of $15 000 for each person affected; and
• for a higher estimate, a value of $30 000 for each person affected as outlined
above.
This results in an estimate of the annual cost of the emotional harm from divorce
and separation resulting from gambling of $126 million to $253 million nationally.
Violence
Information on violence precipitated by problem gambling was only available from
the survey of problem gamblers in counselling. This indicated that 13.1 per cent
reported violence at some stage during their period of problem gambling. If this
prevalence is applied to the number of people with a SOGS score of 10 or more, this
indicates that nationally, some 6130 gamblers were involved in violence as a result
MEASURING COSTS J.31