Australian gambling losses hit $36 billion as online participation reaches 33%

Australia’s latest state statistics put gambling losses at a record $36 billion in the 2025–2026 financial year. For PSPs and operators, the useful part is not just the headline number: online gambling penetration has climbed sharply, and the tax picture for the biggest digital operators remains thin.

1. Adult participation in online gambling rose from 8% in 2017 to 33% in 2025. In 2024, iGaming overtook land-based gambling in Australia for the first time in terms of engagement.
2. Nearly one in three Australian teenagers starts gambling before turning 18, and the country has up to 600,000 underage players. That is the sort of figure regulators and banks tend to remember when they review onboarding, age checks, and advertising exposure.
3. In 2023–2024, the five largest online operators took $5.4 billion from Australian players and paid only $0.1 billion in corporate tax. Three of the five paid no corporate tax at all.
4. Since the publication of the “Murphy Report” in summer 2023, the parliamentary inquiry into the dangers of iGaming, Australia has lost more than $110 billion to gambling. According to polling cited in the source, up to 75% of Australians would support a full ban on gambling advertising, but the authorities have not moved to introduce one.

For high-risk payment businesses, Australia remains a market where digital gambling demand is clearly established, but the political and regulatory pressure points are easy to read: underage access, advertising, and the tax treatment of the biggest operators. That combination usually makes both acquirers and merchants more cautious, not less.