Gambling harm is profound. It is not just financial, it is also social. It impacts mental health, leads to other health issues, and too often it leads to suicide, argues a leading campaigner.

The parallels with big tobacco and gambling are chilling, said Reverend Tim Costello AO.

“They are both predatory industries – industries that knowingly sell harmful products. They invest massive sums to sell and market addictive products.

“Most disturbingly, both tobacco and gambling companies invest huge sums to develop new, addictive products, designed to get young people hooked,” he wrote in the online journal Pearls and Irritations.

Costello argues that governments should treat gambling as a public health issue in the same way they do tobacco.

“We successfully applied a public health approach, banned advertising, introduced plain-paper packaging, and funded research and public education. Eventually, the number of people smoking dramatically reduced and countless lives have been saved as a result,” he said.

“When we look at gambling harm today and the virtually unlimited and unrestricted marketing of gambling, it is as if we have learnt nothing from history.”

Gambling in Australia, he said, “is normalised and celebrated, which has led to the highest levels of gambling losses per capita in the world”.

Costello said the federal government should establish a unit in Health and spearhead the development of a comprehensive national strategy for gambling that encompasses prevention, awareness and education, treatment and research.

‘The parallels with big tobacco and gambling are chilling.’