Gambling is legal in Victoria and easy to access. However, it can cause serious harm for individuals, their family and friends, and for the wider community. Gambling harm costs all Victorians around $7 billion a year, through damage to relationships, health and wellbeing, monetary losses and other social costs.

The Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation (the Foundation) was established in 2012 to reduce gambling harm.

This audit examined whether the Foundation is achieving its intended outcomes and impacts, including through:

• understanding gambling harm
• prevention programs
• treatment services

Key findings:

• The Foundation does not know whether its prevention and treatment programs are effectively reducing the severity of gambling harm.
• While the Foundation may help some people through its programs, it does not understand their broader impact. This is because the Foundation lacks an outcome based framework to develop programs and measure their results. 
• While the Foundation funds research and program evaluation, it does not always use this evidence to improve program design and service delivery.