Australia’s ban on using credit cards for online gambling prompted a noticeable drop in sports betting activity, largely because it made wagering less convenient rather than stopping people from gambling with borrowed money, according to new research.

The study, carried out by economists Aditya Maitra and Matthew Maltman and released by the e61 Institute, analyzed anonymized bank-transaction data before and after the federal government’s June 2024 ban, which outlawed the use of credit cards for online wagering but exempted lotteries.

Maitra and Maltman found that average online sports betting expenditure among affected users fell by about A$50 ($32.88) per fortnight in the six weeks after the ban took effect. The decline was driven by a 15-percent drop in the likelihood of placing a bet, with around one-third of impacted customers ceasing all recorded gambling during the period.

But the authors say the evidence shows the policy did not curb the use of credit for gambling so much as it introduced small obstacles — such as registering new payment methods — that discouraged casual punters.

“The results suggest the mechanism was inconvenience, not liquidity.”

Maitra and Maltman noted that gamblers could still transfer money from a credit card to a bank account and wager from there, at the same cost as before the ban. Few did so, and cash-advance fees actually fell modestly, the researchers found.

Before the ban, credit cards accounted for only a shrinking sliver of the online betting market. By early 2024, just two percent of cardholders used a card for sports wagering, in part because such transactions were treated as cash advances, attracting high fees and interest.

The study also challenges assumptions that credit-card betting disproportionately involves people in financial distress. Users who gambled with their cards typically had higher incomes and more liquid savings than other bettors, and showed no greater signs of debt problems.

While the ban prompted many low-stakes or occasional gamblers to drop out, its impact on heavy gamblers was smaller, and the short-term financial benefits were limited. The authors said they found no clear improvements in savings, spending or overall financial well-being in the weeks following implementation.

The findings come amid political pressure on Canberra to tackle gambling harm in what is believed to be the world’s highest per-capita gambling nation. Surveys show poker machines remain far more closely linked to problem gambling than sports betting.

Maitra and Maltman said the credit-card ban demonstrated that gambling behavior “is responsive to policy”, especially when frictions disrupt impulsive betting. But they added that greater reductions in gambling harm may require targeting sectors where risks are more concentrated.

“Policymakers seeking to reduce harm may achieve greater impact by focusing on poker machines”, they wrote.