Please Gamble Irresponsibly: The rise, fall and rise of sports gambling in Australia

Australians will gamble on anything, from two flies crawling up a wall to less important things like federal elections.

Thanks to the internet, mobile phones and gambling tax loving Federal and State governments, Australians can indulge their love of a punt no matter what they’re doing.

Aussies can be at the birth of a child, performing open heart surgery or handling heavy machinery and still put a bet on.

As a result, Australia sits atop the world when it comes to gambling, losing more money per capita than any other country, leaving the next biggest loser, Singapore, a distant second.

But it wasn’t always this easy because once you could only gamble on sport in Australia illegally, which it turned out was also pretty easy.

Over the last 30 years, gambling on sport has slowly, then quickly become legalised in Australia, to the point were almost every ad on TV seems to be about sport betting.

This book traced the history of gambling in Australia from the convict era, the rise of SP bookies and organised crime, the legalisation and commercialisation of the industry and the threat it now poses to the integrity of sport.