And bingo players, that demographic very much skews towards older people,' she says. 'The average age of a social casino game player is over 45, particularly amongst slots. Professor Sally Gainsbury from the University of Sydney says social casino games are among the oldest skewing game genres. Social casinos and pokies players are also demographically similar.

'If you watch a lot of people playing pokies, they sit there and just keep hitting the button, and they don't actually really care about wins.' Who plays social casinos? 'You can zone out, you can dissociate and not pay attention to what's happening around you,' he says. Last year, a woman in Mackay was jailed for fraud after stealing nearly $1 million from her employer for social casino gameplay.Īssociate Professor Alex Russell, a gambling researcher at Central Queensland University, says these games can be attractive for 'the same reason that pokies are pretty dangerous forms of gambling'. 'That amount of money is a huge sum for someone who's already financially in hardship.' Helplines: and that's advanced to probably $200-300 a week,' Mr Fischer says. 'This particular person initially was only spending. One of his clients, who had been gambling for about 25 years, had migrated to social casino games, he says. He says an increasing number of people seeking help for gambling have played simulated gambling games. 'That is the clearest indication that we can give not only to consumers, but also to industry.' 'We want to be very clear and very binary in this regard, and the certainty that is provided by a proposal that says if there is simulated gambling in a game, then it is subject to a particular rating,' Ms Rowland says. 'A parent, for example, would expect that if their children had purchased and was playing a game, and that game contained some simulated gambling, that they have a right to know about that.'īut the changes may also mean people under 18 will not be permitted to purchase games which contain simulated gambling in a less prominent way, including as a narrative element of a broader game. 'There is growing community concern around the harms of simulated gambling,' she says. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says the proposals - which will require the agreement of states and territories to proceed - are designed to address concerns that these games can encourage players to migrate to gambling.

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