Gambling support services
Offer contact details of a gambling support service to anyone who:
- volunteers concerns about their gambling or that of someone else
- answers ‘yes’ to at least 1 question in the 2-item screening questionnaire.
Patients can also contact gambling support services directly or be referred. If the patient is not willing to interact directly with a support service, the service may still be able to support them by working collaboratively with the patient’s clinicianVictorian Responsible Gambling Foundation.
Contact numbers for gambling support services are available in a printable table.
Gambling support services:
- provide initial assessment of the person’s gambling
- direct people to local services (for financial counselling, social work, general counselling to address mental health, mood disorders, anxiety, relationship difficulties)
- facilitate peer, family and self-support
- facilitate referral to a specialist gambling treatment service (if available) for specific psychological therapies.
Gambling support services help patients take key first steps towards harm reduction such as money management and self-barring.
Money management involves helping a person to cancel credit cards and arrange for someone else to control their finances and provide an allowance. Some banks offer people the opportunity to block their cards and accounts from gambling transactions.
In self-barring, venues have a photo register used to refuse admission or allow staff to approach a barred person to ask if they should be gambling. In the Northern Territory, people can apply to exclude themselves from one or more venues through the Northern Territory government website. In Tasmania, the contact is the Tasmanian Gambling Exclusion Scheme. In other jurisdictions, a person can self-exclude by contacting specific venues and operators. Some venues also offer people the option to set limits on time or money spent on poker machines.
Peer and family support is also available at Gambler’s Anonymous (eg in support groups).