ACT Gambling Harm Incidents Hit Record 72,647 in 2025/26, Up 53% Year on Year

Updated July 2026

The Australian Capital Territory's Gambling and Racing Commission recorded 72,647 gambling harm incidents during the 2025/26 financial year, a 53.5 percent increase from 47,337 in 2024/25 and a doubling from 32,095 in 2023/24. Disclosed during ACT Budget Estimates hearings in July 2026, the figures equate to an average of 199 incidents per day. The data arrive as the ACT government faces mounting pressure from legislators and health advocates to impose mandatory gaming room closures, cut poker machine numbers, and restrict gambling advertising.

• ACT gambling harm incidents in 2025/26: 72,647 (199 per day)
• ACT gambling harm incidents in 2024/25: 47,337 (53.5% increase year on year)
• ACT gambling harm incidents in 2023/24: 32,095 (doubled in two years)
• Self-exclusions in 2025/26: 376 (up from 295 in 2024/25)
• Primary venue type: poker machine venues, driven by multiple cash withdrawal incidents
• Estimated prevalence: approximately 1 in 6 ACT adults experiences gambling-related issues at some level
• Source: ACT Gambling and Racing Commission data, released July 2026 Budget Estimates hearings

What Do the ACT Gambling Harm Incident Numbers Actually Mean?

Gambling harm incidents in the ACT are recorded under a mandatory reporting framework that requires licensed gambling venues, primarily clubs and casinos operating poker machines, to log observed signs of problematic gambling behaviour. Trigger events include multiple cash withdrawals at short intervals, extended unbroken play sessions, spending that exceeds typical thresholds, and other behaviours that venue staff identify as indicators of distress or loss of control. A single person can generate multiple incident reports across a session or across the year, which means the 72,647 figure reflects the total volume of logged observations rather than 72,647 distinct individuals. Nevertheless, the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission Commission CEO Giuseppe Mangeruca described rising incident reports as "not a bad thing," framing the increase as a sign that venues are fulfilling their obligations and that staff are more actively identifying and recording concerns than in prior years.

Why Have Incident Reports More Than Doubled in Two Years?

ACT Minister for Gambling Reform Marisa Patterson attributed part of the increase to her advocacy pushing venues toward greater engagement with reporting obligations. She noted that previously "one particular club was producing most of the reporting and most of the other clubs not producing any," suggesting the 2023/24 baseline of 32,095 incidents significantly undercounted the true scale of the problem because many venues were simply not logging what their staff observed. The rapid successive increases of approximately 50 percent in 2024/25 and 53.5 percent in 2025/26 could therefore reflect both genuine worsening of harm and an improving reporting culture that is now capturing incidents that were previously invisible to regulators. The ACT Gambling and Racing Commission has not provided a definitive breakdown of what proportion of the increase is attributable to each factor.

What Types of Incidents Are Being Recorded?

Money-seeking behaviours, specifically multiple cash withdrawals at ATMs within poker machine venues, represent the largest single category of recorded incidents. High-intensity play, defined as extended sessions combined with spending above set thresholds, is the second major category. The concentration of incidents around ATM access points reflects the structure of harm in venues where poker machines are the primary product: players in distress frequently withdraw cash in rapid succession as losses mount, creating a visible pattern that trained staff can identify and log. Self-exclusions, a more serious indicator that a person has formally recognised a problem severe enough to seek venue-level restrictions, increased from 295 in 2024/25 to 376 in 2025/26, a 27 percent rise that tracks in the same direction as broader incident data.

What Is the Scale of Gambling Harm Across ACT's Adult Population?

Survey data published alongside the incident statistics estimate that approximately 1 in 6 ACT adults experiences gambling-related problems at some level of severity. Critically, a 2024 ACT survey found that while the number of people gambling overall has declined, alongside a reduction in the number of poker machines in the territory, harm has intensified among the remaining gambling population. That finding is consistent with patterns observed in other jurisdictions that have reduced machine numbers without simultaneously addressing stake limits, speed of play, or the design features of machines that sustain extended sessions: reducing supply does not automatically reduce harm if the remaining supply is concentrated among a high-risk cohort with limited capacity to moderate their own behaviour.

What Policy Changes Are Being Demanded?

Independent MLA Thomas Emerson used the Budget Estimates disclosure to renew calls for a range of reforms. His publicly stated priorities include mandatory gaming room closures at specified hours, modelled on restrictions already in place in New South Wales and Victoria; a ban on political donations from the gambling industry, which he argued creates conflicts of interest in the legislative response to harm data; restrictions on gambling advertising; and further reductions in poker machine numbers. Minister Patterson, while stopping short of committing to a specific timeline, indicated the government was considering further restrictions and described the direction of travel as toward greater consumer protection. The ACT's position is complicated by the territory's unusual reliance on clubs, which derive substantial revenue from gaming machines and employ significant numbers of people, creating economic pressures that weigh against rapid regulatory intervention.

How Does ACT Compare to Other Australian Jurisdictions?

New South Wales and Victoria both operate mandatory curfews on poker machine venues that require clubs to close gaming rooms for specified overnight hours. The ACT has no equivalent mandatory curfew, which Emerson and harm advocates identify as a gap that the incident data now makes harder to defend. Nationally, Australia remains one of the world's most concentrated markets for electronic gaming machines outside casinos: the country has approximately 2.5 percent of the world's population but for many years hosted as much as 20 percent of the world's poker machines, though that figure has shifted as other markets have grown. Per-capita losses on gaming machines in ACT remain among the highest in Australia, and the territory's small population, currently around 500,000 adults, means that the 1 in 6 prevalence estimate implies roughly 80,000 to 85,000 people experiencing harm at some level at any given point.

What Role Do Offshore Online Operators Play?

The ACT Gambling and Racing Commission acknowledged in the Budget Estimates session that offshore online gambling operators continue to present enforcement challenges. Australians who turn to unlicensed offshore platforms fall outside the harm incident reporting system entirely, since those operators have no obligations to ACT or Australian federal regulators. The incident data therefore captures only the harm visible within licensed land-based venues, and does not reflect online gambling harm, whether on licensed Australian platforms or illegal offshore ones. Advocacy groups have argued that the true scale of gambling harm in the ACT is therefore higher than official incident figures suggest, and have called for the federal government's restrictions on illegal offshore operators to be more vigorously enforced alongside territory-level reforms targeting land-based venues.

What Is Australia Doing About Gambling Harm at the Federal Level?

At the federal level, Australia has been debating a ban on gambling advertising across broadcast media, following a parliamentary inquiry that recommended phased restrictions in 2023. Implementation has moved slowly, with the broadcast advertising ban remaining contested as of mid-2026 amid lobbying from sports broadcasters and the racing industry. The ACT incident data, released into a national policy environment that is already sensitised to gambling harm, is likely to give proponents of the advertising ban additional political momentum. The ACT's experience with reporting frameworks that generate visible, comparable data over time also offers a template for other jurisdictions: the ability to show year-on-year change in harm incidents provides a clearer evidence base for evaluating the effect of policy interventions than pre-and-post surveys, which are more expensive and infrequent.

What Should the Industry Take from ACT's Harm Incident Data?

For operators in markets with mandatory harm incident reporting frameworks, the ACT data underscore that improving reporting compliance, which the ACT government clearly achieved between 2023/24 and 2025/26, will produce visible step-changes in publicly reported harm figures regardless of whether underlying harm has changed. That creates a communications challenge: higher incident numbers can simultaneously reflect genuine improvements in venue safeguarding and generate headlines that increase regulatory pressure. The trajectory in ACT, where incident reports doubled in two years as reporting culture improved, is a predictable outcome that regulators in Australia and elsewhere may be able to use as evidence for the value of mandatory reporting frameworks, while operators need to anticipate that greater reporting compliance will be read by legislators as evidence of escalating harm regardless of the underlying dynamic. The rise in self-exclusions, from 295 to 376, is harder to explain away as a reporting artefact: people self-excluding are making an active decision about their own behaviour, and a 27 percent single-year increase in self-exclusions is a substantive indicator of growing demand for harm intervention tools.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission?

The ACT Gambling and Racing Commission is the regulatory body responsible for gambling oversight in the Australian Capital Territory, which includes Canberra. It licenses and regulates gaming machine venues, casinos, interactive gambling, and betting operations in the territory, and administers the mandatory harm incident reporting framework that venues must use to log observed signs of problematic gambling behaviour.

What counts as a gambling harm incident in the ACT?

Licensed venues must log observations of behaviours that suggest problematic gambling, including multiple rapid cash withdrawals, extended play sessions above defined time or spending thresholds, visible distress, and other indicators. A single person can generate multiple incident reports. Staff are trained to identify these triggers and are legally required to record them when observed.

Why did ACT gambling harm incidents jump 53.5% in one year?

Regulators and the government attribute part of the increase to improved reporting compliance: previously, many venues were not filing reports consistently. However, authorities have not ruled out genuine worsening of harm among the gambling population. The simultaneous 27 percent rise in self-exclusions, which reflects active individual decisions rather than venue reporting patterns, suggests at least some of the increase reflects real change in harm levels.

How many people in the ACT experience gambling harm?

Survey data estimate approximately 1 in 6 ACT adults experience gambling-related problems at some level, suggesting around 80,000 to 85,000 people given the ACT's adult population of roughly 500,000. A 2024 ACT survey found that while fewer people are gambling overall, harm is intensifying among those who do, particularly at poker machine venues.

What reforms is the ACT considering for problem gambling?

Proposals under discussion include mandatory gaming room curfews similar to New South Wales and Victoria, a ban on gambling industry political donations, restrictions on gambling advertising, further reductions in the number of permitted poker machines, and enhanced consumer protections. The government consulted on reforms but had not legislated them as of the July 2026 Budget Estimates hearings.

Does the ACT harm data capture online gambling?

No. The mandatory incident reporting framework applies only to licensed land-based venues. Harm from online gambling, whether through licensed Australian operators or illegal offshore platforms, falls outside the system. Harm advocates argue the real scale of gambling harm in the ACT exceeds official incident figures because of this gap in coverage.

Sources: Canberra Times; GamblingNews; ACT Gambling and Racing Commission Budget Estimates data, July 2026.