Large-scale surveys with adolescents indicate that adolescent gambling, although illegal, is relatively common (Hing et al., 2021; King et al., 2020), and that parents are major facilitators of their gambling behaviour (Freund et al., 2019; King & Delfabbro, 2016). Yet, there is limited research examining adolescent gambling from the perspective of parents, and so it is unclear what attitudes parents hold towards adolescent gambling, or whether they are aware of their adolescent’s participation in gambling. This study was the first known survey of parents on adolescent gambling that considered emerging and simulated forms of gambling. Overall, the findings of the study indicated that most parents do not approve of adolescent exposure to gambling, but that they view adolescent gambling and simulated gambling as less concerning than other issues. However, parents, particularly fathers, reported that adolescent gambling and parental gambling in the presence of their adolescent was common.

This study examined parental attitudes towards adolescent gambling in two ways. Firstly, the findings indicated that most parents do not endorse adolescents being exposed to gambling or to activities that promote gambling, consistent with Canadian research with parents of adolescents (Campbell et al., 2011). However, a notable proportion of parents were either ambivalent or considered it was acceptable for adolescents to gamble occasionally (22.0%), or to be exposed to gambling on television (36.4%) or through simulated gambling activities (31.7%). Interestingly, this level of parental approval of adolescent gambling contrasts with findings from a survey with adolescents in which few (< 3.0%) adolescents indicated that their parents would approve of them gambling (Hing et al., 2021). Secondly, the study found that parents considered gambling to be of lower concern in comparison to other adolescent issues. Like the findings from the Canadian study (Campbell et al., 2011), issues such as bullying, drug use, mental health issues and time spent online, were of greater concern to parents. It is understandable that these issues are of high concern to parents, given that these issues and their detrimental impacts are embedded within health and wellbeing curricula in schools and are the topics of public awareness campaigns. In contrast, much of the public messaging around gambling comes from gambling advertising (especially for sports betting), promoting gambling as a positive, fun and socially acceptable activity, which is not appropriately balanced by messaging describing the harms and risks of gambling for adults, let alone for adolescents (Nyemcsok et al., 2021). Thus, these findings potentially reflect an under-appreciation by some parents of the risks and harms associated with gambling and present an opportunity for information and educational efforts.

We also found that, according to parents, gambling among adolescents is relatively common. Specifically, 27% of respondents indicated that their adolescent had participated in at least one of the 14 forms of gambling during the past 12 months. Notably, this rate reflects only the gambling that parents were aware of and does not include gambling that adolescents engage in without their parent’s knowledge. Indeed, between 3–5% of parents across the different gambling activities indicated that they did not know if their adolescent had gambled on that activity. Acknowledging that this estimate is not population representative because of the sampling procedure used, the rate found in this study was comparable to past-year gambling rates self-reported by adolescents in recent Australian surveys (e.g., 30% in Hing et al., 2021; 12–19% in Warren & Yu, 2018). Thus, many parents are aware, at least to some extent, of their adolescent’s participation in monetary gambling. Further, consistent with surveys with adolescents (e.g., Freund et al., 2019; Hing et al., 2021; Warren & Yu, 2018), parents reported that adolescents had engaged in the full spectrum of gambling activities. This included traditional forms (e.g., scratch tickets, keno) and emergent forms (e.g., eSports betting, online betting, skin betting), and activities considered lower risk (e.g., scratch tickets, lottery) and those considered higher risk (e.g., sports betting, poker machines, online betting; Gooding & Williams, 2024; Oksanen et al., 2019).

To our understanding, this is the first study to ask parents to report on their knowledge of their adolescent’s engagement in simulated gambling. Prior research with adolescents indicated that young people engaged in simulated gambling without parental supervision (King & Delfabbro, 2016). However, we found that many parents do have knowledge of their adolescent’s simulated gambling, even though it might not be occurring under their direct supervision. Specifically, parents reported that 28% of target adolescents had taken part in at least one form of simulated gambling in the past 12 months; a rate comparable with that reported by adolescents (e.g., 40% in Hing et al., 2021; 15–24% in Warren & Yu, 2018). Parental knowledge of simulated gambling is likely to be a greater under-estimate than that for monetary gambling, given that between 16–24% of parents across the different simulated gambling activities reported that they did not know if their adolescent had participated in that activity. This is not surprising given the covert way that simulated gambling is incorporated into social media platforms and video games that are popular among adolescents (Hing et al., 2022a, b). Furthermore, since research suggests that some forms of simulated gambling may be a pathway to monetary gambling, and that simulated gambling is associated with gambling harm among young adults (Russell et al., 2023), effort needs to be directed towards raising awareness among parents of these activities and their potential risks and harms.

We also investigated adolescent exposure to parent gambling, given that adolescents indicate that their parents facilitate their gambling (Freund et al., 2019; King & Delfabbro, 2016), and because parental gambling is a well-established risk factor for adolescent gambling (Calado et al., 2017). Consistent with results of the Canadian parent survey (Campbell et al., 2011), we found that there are high rates of parents gambling in the presence of their adolescent, as approximately two-thirds of parents who had gambled had done so when their adolescent was with them. Interestingly, the pattern of parent-adolescent gambling activities was different to adolescent gambling participation. While scratch tickets and lottery were the most common adolescent gambling activities, skin betting, fantasy sport betting, keno and online betting were the most common co-gambling activities. In comparison, the most common activities reported by Campbell et al. (2011) were more innocuous, comprising purchasing scratch tickets, raffle tickets and lottery tickets. Our findings suggest that today’s parents are introducing their adolescents to newer and potentially more harmful forms of gambling (Browne et al., 2023). The risk of this high level of adolescent exposure to parental gambling is that adolescents learn that these activities are socially acceptable and enjoyable, leading to ongoing involvement in these and other gambling forms. Clearly, longitudinal research is needed to determine what this early co-gambling behaviour means for longer-term gambling outcomes (Sakata & Jenkinson, 2022).

An additional important finding from this research relates to differences between mothers and fathers in their gambling attitudes and awareness of adolescent gambling. Fathers were more likely to hold positive attitudes to adolescent gambling, reported higher rates of adolescent gambling and simulated gambling participation, and reported gambling in the presence of their adolescent. These differences were particularly prominent among fathers who reported on adolescent sons, consistent with the Canadian parent survey (Shead et al., 2011), and consistent with research suggesting that male gender is a risk factor for adolescent (Dowling et al., 2017) and adult problem gambling (Allami et al., 2021). These parent gender differences are difficult to explain but imply that fathers have greater awareness of adolescent gambling compared to mothers. Fathers’ own greater involvement in gambling is likely to make them more aware of their adolescent’s involvement, either through gambling with their adolescent present, observations of their adolescent’s behaviour, or conversations with them about gambling activities. Further, given that fathers were more likely to hold positive attitudes towards adolescent gambling, they would be less likely to see gambling with their adolescent as problematic and less likely to engage in behaviour that protects their adolescent from exposure to gambling. Importantly, if fathers do have greater awareness of their adolescent’s gambling behaviour, this presents an opportunity to educate fathers about the risks and harms of adolescent gambling as a prevention strategy. Further, these results imply that mothers would benefit from education about adolescent gambling and simulated gambling to build their capacity to monitor and discuss their adolescent’s gambling activities.

Finally, we aimed to identify any sociodemographic correlates of parent-reported adolescent gambling and exposure to parental gambling. Mothers and fathers who were younger and from an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background reported higher adolescent gambling participation and adolescent exposure to parental gambling. Fathers with higher education reported greater adolescent gambling participation. Prior research with adolescents has indicated that social disadvantage, growing up in a single-parent household and being from a minority background are reliable family sociodemographic risk factors for adolescent gambling (Calado et al., 2017; Dowling et al., 2017). The finding that parents who were from an Indigenous background reported greater adolescent gambling fits with research indicating minority cultural status is a risk factor for adolescent gambling (Calado et al., 2017). However, we did not find support for lower family income or family structure being correlates of adolescent gambling. Further, the finding that higher paternal education was associated with adolescent gambling is inconsistent with past research indicating lower socioeconomic status is associated with adolescent gambling (Calado et al., 2017), and research with adults indicating higher education is associated with lower gambling problems (Browne et al., 2019b). However, it is important to note that, although statistically significant, these factors were only weakly correlated with adolescent gambling behaviour.

Several study limitations should be noted. The use of online panels for data collection means that the sample is not representative of the Australian parent population and any comparison with gambling participation rates from previous representative surveys of adolescents needs to be done cautiously. However, it is noteworthy that this recruitment method facilitated the recruitment of a large sample of fathers (31.0%), single parents (19.7%), families with household incomes below the national median (38%), and parents from an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background (7.3%). Fathers tend to be particularly poorly represented in research with parents (Fabiano & Caserta, 2018), so the large cohort of fathers in this study is an important strength. Additionally, while obtaining parent reports of adolescent gambling is an important extension of prior research, ideally, future research should take a multi-informant approach to compare parent and adolescent reports of these behaviours.

Several limitations relate to the items used to assess adolescent gambling and simulated gambling participant and parent-adolescent co-gambling. Adolescent gambling was measured using parent reports of the total number of adolescent gambling activities. It is possible that an adolescent may have engaged in only one or two activities but did so at a high frequency. Further, for brevity, the survey did not ask parents about their adolescents’ use of microtransactions in games (e.g., expenditure to progress faster or to a higher level in a game). However, this is an issue that warrants further research given that these monetary expenditures in video games have some characteristics of gambling (e.g., King et al., 2019) and their use has been linked to greater likelihood of gambling (King et al., 2016) and gambling problems (Hing et al., 2022b) in adolescents. Finally, the measure of adolescent exposure to parental gambling involved asking parents to rate how often they gambled on each form when their teenager was with them. This may have been interpreted by some parents to mean that their adolescent was present with them, rather than their adolescent being directly included in the gambling activity. Thus, future research should improve on parent-report measures of adolescent gambling and simulated gambling participation and parent-adolescent co-gambling.