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Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice

No. 256: Gambling as a motivation for the commission of financial crime

Yuka Sakurai and Russell G Smith
ISBN 0 642 53806 9 ; ISSN 0817-8542
June 2003

Abstract

At present, adult Australians spend $13,839 million a year on gambling, or $901 per adult per year. However, with increasing opportunities and venues for gambling, public concern about 'problem gambling' has grown. This paper examines one of the principal social costs of gambling, namely, gambling related crime, or crime committed by individual gamblers in order to finance their gambling. Recent studies supporting the relationship between problem gambling and financial crime are discussed, and the most effective judicial responses are assessed. The paper finds that gambling related crime is usually limited to non violent property crime, such as theft, shoplifting, embezzlement and misappropriation of money; discusses the relationship between gambling and the commission of fraud; and compares the patterns of offending of gambling motivated fraudsters and non gambling motivated offenders. The paper finds that pathological gambling addiction is rarely viewed by the courts as a mitigating factor in sentencing or one that requires special rehabilitative procedures, and argues that these findings raise a question as to the appropriateness of the current judicial response to gambling related financial crime.

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