Content warning: This story deals with suicide could be triggering for some readers.
Kate Seselja vividly remembers the first time she played pokies. She was 18 years old and at a local club that had countless numbers of poker machines.
"At this time in the late '90s, NSW had rapidly become the pokies capital of Australia. It was something we would do socially with friends. But once it came on my radar, and I started using them and it quickly got out of hand," Kate tells Mamamia.
Over the next few decades, Kate's gambling addiction ebbed and flowed.
She managed to keep it a secret from her husband and family for some years, before it quickly became apparent to all how overwhelming the addiction had become. One day, while pregnant with her second child and at a mother's group in a recreational club, she heard it - the familiar sounds of the poker machines. It was a siren's call.
By 2012, Kate had put $500,000 through the poker machines. All that money was through credit cards and the mortgage, meaning her family was essentially half a million dollars in debt.
It left Kate feeling suicidal. She says if it wasn't for the fact she was pregnant at the time, she would have taken her own life.
Watch: why gambling and kids don't mix. Post continues below.
Fortunately for Kate, she had her family's support and lots of help from an understanding new counsellor. And her future started looking brighter.
It was around a year into her recovery, that it dawned on Kate how widespread gambling addiction is in Australia.
"For over a decade, I had felt isolated and alone in the struggle of poker machine addiction. Then I realised it wasn't just me. I actually met other people who had struggled with gambling addiction as well, and that helped me see the gravity of the whole situation," she says.
According to the Gambling in Australia report, Australia has the greatest gambling losses in the world - 40 per cent greater than the nation that comes second on the tally.
Even more sobering is that Australia has such little regulation within the gambling industry, in comparison to reforms in other countries.
"I almost took my life and died not understanding the whole gambling landscape of this country," notes Kate. "I had such shame, but it shouldn't be up to me to feel that shame. It should lie directly with the government and our gambling industry, given Australia has the most unsafe gambling environment in the whole world. And the fact this industry has weaponised shame into making people think it's their individual fault, is so wrong."
Gambling-related suicides are steadily rising, the statistics telling us that gambling addiction kills one Australian every day.
The social costs of gambling - including adverse financial impacts, emotional and psychological costs, relationship and family impacts, and productivity loss and work impacts - have been estimated at around $7 billion in the state of Victoria alone.
A staggering 7.2 per cent of Australians - that's around 1.33 million people - were classified as being at some risk of experiencing gambling-related problems in 2018. And given it's now 2023, we can only assume that statistic has increased.
Previously, a parliamentary inquiry recommended all ads for online gambling should be banned within three years. The committee put forward 31 recommendations in its final report while calling for a crackdown on an industry that was "manipulating an impressionable and vulnerable audience".
Among the recommendations was a plan to phase out online gambling ads over a three-year period, culminating in a ban across all forms of media.
The first stage of the plan would feature a ban on online gambling ads during school pick-up and drop-off periods as well as the removal of exemptions for the ads during news and current affairs broadcasts.
The ads would then be banned during sports broadcasts and for one hour on either side of matches and further restrictions would be placed on in-stadium advertising, including ads on players' uniforms. A ban between 6am and 10pm would next be implemented, followed by a total prohibition at the end of the three-year period.
Ads on racing channels would be exempt under the proposal.
Australia's peak body for Public Health applauded the inquiry's report.
"It's essential that the Australian Government acts now, despite the fightback which the gambling industry and its associated partners will mount," said Public Health Association of Australia CEO, Adj Prof Terry Slevin.
Inquiry chair and Labor MP Peta Murphy agreed that it's time for the government and regulatory bodies to act.
"Australians lose the most to online gambling because we have a weak and fragmented regulatory framework, which places all the onus for reducing harm onto the person who gambles.
"Gambling advertising is grooming children and young people to gamble and encourages riskier behaviour. The torrent of advertising is inescapable."
It's this sentiment that Kate wholeheartedly agrees with.
As a mother of six and now in her 40s, Kate says she is very much attuned to what her kids are exposed to in terms of gambling advertising.
"There's so much intentional grooming of gambling in this country. So I spend a lot of time educating my children and their friends, speaking at schools and universities to try and help people understand why gambling isn't just harmless fun. It's a public health issue, just like tobacco."
She continues: "The psychologists who create these machines knew what they were doing. The algorithm is designed with a massively high number of near misses to keep you thinking: it's the next press, it's the next press, it's the next press. Inducing that hypnotic state."
With all of this in mind, Kate hopes the recommendations made by the parliamentary inquiry are made.
In the meantime, she continues to work as a recovery coach - sharing advice and tools on how to deal with gambling harm through public speaking and advocacy via her not-for-profit organisation, The Hope Project.
For the past 10 years she has helped hundreds of people, and says it's an incredibly rewarding experience.
"You speak to people and they feel so profoundly broken and that they've lost everything. It breaks my heart," Kate says.
"Understanding how the pokies work and that the whole environment is set up to make you fail often makes a big difference in recovery. Once they understand the whole dynamic, it's much easier for them to turn their focus on making sure they no longer hate themselves but instead hate the industry."
It's personal stories like Kate's that remind us just how life-threatening gambling addiction is.
As for whether the federal government will make a move to establish further reform in the gambling industry - time will ultimately tell.
For more from Kate, you can follow The Hope Project on Instagram, or visit their website here.
If you or someone you love is struggling with gambling addiction, help is available. For support, please call Gambling Help on 1800 858 858 or visit Gambling Help Online.
If you find yourself needing to talk to someone after reading this story, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Feature Image: Supplied.