Lottery most popular gambling category for Australians
10.6 million Australians aged 18+ (55.4%) gambled in the 12 months to June 2018, including 8.6 million (44.8%) who bought a lottery or scratchie ticket. While total gambling participants have declined over the last 15 years, lottery and scratchie tickets are leagues ahead of poker betting, Keno, and casino table games when looking at participants.
Narrowing the focus to a more recent timeframe shows that over the last three years lottery and scratchie tickets have held their own with an unchanged 8.6 million Australians buying a lottery or scratchie ticket. However, this stability in participation hides movement in regards to the underlying lottery items.
Now 7.7 million Australians bought a lottery ticket of any sort in the year to June 2018 encompassing Monday/ Wednesday/ Saturday Lotto, Powerball, Oz Lotto or Other Lottery tickets, down from 7.9 million three years ago.
This decline was driven by a fall in Australians buying Monday/Wednesday/Saturday Lotto tickets, down 0.6 million to 5.7 million and fewer Australians buying Powerball tickets, down 0.2 million to 3.6 million.
In contrast more Australians are today buying OzLotto tickets, up 0.4 million to 3.3 million, and more Australians are buying Other Lottery tickets which includes Lotto Strike, Pools, Keno, Super 66 and Cash 3, up marginally by 0.1 million to 0.9 million.
Buying of scratchie tickets has also declined slightly over the last three years down 0.2 million to 3 million Australians in the year to June 2018.
These are the latest findings from the Roy Morgan ‘Gambling Currency Report’, from in-depth personal interviews conducted face-to-face with thousands of people in their own home. The Roy Morgan Single Source survey of over 50,000 Australians in the 12 months ended June 2018 included in-depth interviews with over 14,000 people who had gambled in the last three months.
When it comes to buying lottery and scratchie tickets, the likelihood of having bought a lottery or scratchie ticket rises with age until peaking with Australians aged 50-64 years old. A similar pattern also exists for other forms of gambling such as playing keno or betting.
Over half of Australians aged 50-64 years old (55.6%) and aged 65+ years old (50.7%) buy lottery or scratchie tickets in an average three months.
In contrast only 12.6% of Australians aged 18-24 years old and 27.2% of Australians aged 25-34 years old buy lottery or scratchie tickets in an average three months. 39.2% of Australians aged 35-49 years old buy lottery or scratchie tickets which puts the group firmly in line with the national average of 39.9%.