Australia's Gambling Industries - Productivity Commission

F
National Gambling Survey
F.1 Introduction
Background
The only so-called ‘national’ gambling survey previously undertaken for Australia
was carried out in 1991-92 (Dickerson et al. 1996), but its coverage was national in
only a limited sense:
• it covered four large capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane);
but
• there was no coverage of rural populations.
More recently, statewide surveys have been undertaken which cover metropolitan
and country populations: Tasmania (Dickerson and Baron 1994b, Dickerson and
Maddern 1997); Western Australia (Dickerson, Baron and O’Connor 1994); New
South Wales (Dickerson, Allcock, Blaszczynski, Nicholls, Williams and Maddern
1996a, Dickerson, Allcock, Blaszczynski, Maddern, Nicholls and Williams 1998);
South Australia (Delfabbro and Winefield 1996); and Victoria (Market Solutions
and Dickerson 1997, Roy Morgan Research 1999).
In October 1998, a Roundtable was held at the Commission which brought together
key Australian researchers in the gambling field, including: Professor Mark
Dickerson, Professor Jan McMillen, Associate Professor Alun Jackson, Dr Paul
Delfabbro, and Dr Michael Walker. At the Roundtable, issues discussed included:
• limitations of existing Australian prevalence surveys;
• whether a new national gambling survey should be conducted;
• survey methodology and design issues for any proposed survey; and
• gaps in the available data.
The Roundtable endorsed the conducting of a new National Gambling Survey. The
advantages of such a survey are that it would:
• assemble a contemporary national unit record database, using a uniform set of
questions asked at the one time across adults in all metropolitan and country
regions;
NATIONAL GAMBLING
SURVEY
F.1