BUNBURY residents struggling with a gambling addiction can now seek help with the launch of Beyond Gambling.
Bunbury Counselling director Carrina Bradbury said a program like this was overdue in the South West.
“We have received responses that the impacts of gambling are not being addressed as a group of collective issues,” she said.
“The link between gambling and other social and health issues is prevalent within our community.
“Locally there is a lack of appropriate and relevant service models to cater for the diverse needs relating to gambling and we hope that this program will assist this.”
The spotlight has been on gambling recently with the federal opposition promising to ban television betting commercials during live sport if they are elected in September.
Mrs Bradbury believes the changing nature of gambling including an increase in advertising and the ability to gamble online have resulted in a change to the gambling demographic.
“The ability to now gamble online has led to a change in the gambling demographic which includes higher rates amongst women,” Mrs Bradbury said.
“This has led to a need for both the education and treatment around gambling to be updated across both genders and a wide spread of age groups, cultures and socio-economic groups.”
For more information contact 9721 9939.