Data-Driven Reduction in Gambling Harm for Stronger Community Resilience

Jurisdiction: Victoria

#Protecting-communities-from-gambling-harm

How might we use public data to understand and reduce gambling harm in our communities — from protecting young people online to identifying at-risk neighbourhoods and addressing the long-term impacts on families and social connection?

Gambling creates significant challenges for community wellbeing, particularly in disadvantaged areas where electronic gaming machine (EGM) density is highest and gambling harm impacts are most severe. Areas with high EGM spending often correlate with increased crime, family violence, and mental health issues. In addition, access and exposure to online gambling, especially for under-18s, is increasingly being enabled by online platforms, video games, and social media.
At a broader community level, electronic gaming machines, socio-economic stress, and chronic gambling behaviour cause long-lasting impacts on wellbeing, finances, and social cohesion.

Victoria collects extensive data across multiple agencies that could be leveraged to better understand and prevent gambling harm, some of which is listed below. Yet this data can be siloed, preventing comprehensive understanding of gambling harm patterns and limiting the effectiveness of prevention strategies.

Your challenge is to use datasets including EGM activity, crime and health statistics, socio-economic indicators, and digital engagement metrics to:
- Identify risk factors and at-risk communities
- Design interventions for youth protection
- Propose community-level solutions that foster resilience, reduce harm, and
strengthen social connection

Eligibility: Open to all, but preference given to teams with a lead in VIC. At least one dataset from data.vic.gov.au must be used. Your proposal must clearly address the challenge.

Entry: Challenge entry is available to all teams in Australia.

Dataset Highlight

Current LGA Population Density & Gaming Expenditure Statistics