23 March 2000

Next time you scratch a lottery ticket, something else could be rubbing off- copycat behaviour by your children, according to a University researcher.

Rohan Miller, of the UQ Business School at UQ Ipswich, is conducting the world's first known study on the influence of marketing on gambling consumption.

"One way adolescents learn to consume gambling products is by imitating their parents," he said. "If parents buy lottery tickets, this behaviour will be copied by neophyte consumers - their children.

"Other reasons for people gambling, and the products on which they gamble remain largely unknown."

Preceding this study, Mr Miller and Professor Dick Mizerski of the University of Western Australia worked extensively on a dataset of 7000consumers gathered over a three-year period from the Florida, U.S. Lottery. Mr Miller said that up to 80 percent of households purchased lottery tickets, and 60 percent of these, very frequently.

After analysing the Florida data, he concluded that lottery purchase patterns are no different from purchase patterns of 50 other consumer goods.

"There will always be heavy consumers in every consumer product category," Mr Miller said. "Heavy consumers in the gambling product category are commonly assumed to be problem gamblers, yet there are problems with the current definitions of 'problem gamblers'.

"We used a stochastic model that clearly indicated that heavy gambling consumers are evenly distributed across all cross-sections of the community, and not just from any one category. This implies that heavy gamblers could be anyone in any walk of life.

"There's been a massive shift in gambling in the past 20 years to gambling as a popular pastime. The industry employs a lot of people and drives the tourism industry.

"Over 15 percent of Victorian Government revenue and around 12 percent of Queensland funds are derived from this sector. A major issue is diversification with a raft of new gambling products focused on particular groups coming onto the market."

He is undertaking a PhD supervised by Professor Mizerski examining marketing and advertising influences on adolescent intentions and gambling behaviour.

This research will provide a better understanding of how people begin the gambling process, and the influences of their families, peer groups, and the mass media in the process. It has potential application to assist the gambling industry, consumers and public policy makers to identify likely consumer problems and adapt products accordingly.

Mr Miller made a submission late last year to the Productivity Commission on gambling and recently had two papers accepted to the upcoming World Gaming Conference in Las Vegas. He said most gambling involved regulated monopolies, with State Governments which ran lotteries also controlling gambling, providing potential conflicts of interest.

Media: Further information: Rohan Miller, telephone 3381 1081 or mobile 0411 123455, email: rohanmiller@mailbox.uq.edu.au