Tasmanians now ditching pokies for online gambling: report

More Tasmanians prefer to gamble online than play pokies in pubs and clubs, according to the latest study conducted by the State’s Department of Treasury and Finance.

Citing the government’s Social and Economic Impact Study (SEIS), ABC News reported that poker machine use in Tasmania has declined 27 percent over the past decade while online gambling has increased by more than 54 percent.

State researchers said that one out of 10 Tasmanian adults had experience gambling online, and most of them played using their mobile phones. They also found that regular gambling is prevalent among Australian-born males who earn between AUD80,000 ($63,603.20) and AUD119,999 ($95404) annually.

The average money that Tasmanians gambled in 2017 was AUD950 ($755.29), according to the research, which also pointed out that problem gamblers were now a “tiny proportion of the Tasmanian population.”