Gambling Habit Hacker and GamblingLess: In-The-Moment are two apps available to people across Australia.
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Gambling Intervention apps

Gambling harm affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Two evidence-based Australian apps are helping people change course.

An estimated 8.7% of adults worldwide engage in some level of risky gambling, including 1.4% experiencing problematic or harmful gambling. The effects can extend far beyond financial loss, affecting mental health, relationships, employment and the wellbeing of families.

People may need different kinds of help at different points: some need immediate support during moments of intense urge or vulnerability, while others want to reduce unplanned gambling or stay within their personal spend limits .

Researchers from Deakin University and the Auckland University of Technology developed two complementary digital interventions to address both needs. 

  • GamblingLess: In-The-Moment is designed for people already experiencing gambling harm. It provides personalised support around gambling urges, triggers, and expectations, helping users respond during the moments when conventional support may not be immediately available.

  • Gambling Habit Hacker helps people set goals around their gambling and stick to the limits they choose. Users check in on their intentions, urges, mood and confidence, and receive tailored strategies designed to support earlier behaviour change.

Both apps use ecological momentary assessments and just-in-time adaptive interventions to deliver support in daily life. Funded by the NSW Government, they are publicly available in Australia through GambleAware and can be used discreetly from a person’s own phone.

“We developed GamblingLess: In-The-Moment and Gambling Habit Hacker to make evidence-informed support available when people actually need it, whether they are trying to avoid unplanned gambling or stick to their spend limits. Our hope is that evidence-based interventions like these can eventually reach people everywhere.”

The apps have already been developed and evaluated through usability testing, micro-randomised trials, six-month single-arm outcome evaluations, acceptability research, and feasibility research. GamblingLess: In-The-Moment has also been evaluated through a three-year single-arm outcome evaluation.

GamblingLess: In-The-Moment delivered significant improvements in gambling symptoms, gambling frequency, gambling expenditure, craving intensity, confidence in managing high-risk situations, and positive expectations about the outcomes of gambling, with these improvements maintained at both six months and three years after treatment. At both timepoints, around two-thirds of participants achieved clinically significant recovery or improvement in gambling symptoms.

Gambling Habit Hacker also showed strong results, helping to improve gambling expenditure, gambling symptoms, gambling frequency, confidence in managing risky situations, psychological distress and wellbeing, with gains maintained at six months after treatment. 

Together, these evaluations provide evidence that personalised, in-the-moment digital support can help people change gambling behaviour and reduce harm. 

Two apps that are supported by research evidence already exist. They are making a difference in Australia. The opportunity now is to extend that impact globally.

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CREATORS

Professor Nicki Dowling
Leading gambling researcher at Deakin University

Professor Nicki Dowling is a clinical psychologist and a leading gambling researcher at Deakin University. For more than two decades, her work has focused on understanding, preventing and treating gambling-related harm, including the development of accessible digital interventions for people who gamble and those affected by another person’s gambling.

She leads Deakin University’s Gambling Research and Treatment Group, which comprises world-leading and emerging researchers undertaking research across all areas of gambling studies, using a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research designs. Their programmatic focus is on three strategic pillars of research addressing the identification, prevention, and treatment of gambling-related harm, encompassing the experiences of people who gamble and their family members and friends.

Deakin University and research partners

The Gambling Research and Treatment Group in the Deakin Lifespan Institute at Deakin University leads research into the identification, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harm. The interventions were developed and evaluated through collaboration between researchers from Deakin University and partner institutions in Australia and New Zealand. Together, the team combined expertise in gambling treatment, behaviour change, implementation support, biostatistics and research design, and technology development.

References

  • The 2024 Lancet Public Health Commission estimated that 8.7% of adults worldwide engage in some level of risky gambling, including 1.41% experiencing problematic or harmful gambling. [Source]

  • Gambling harm can affect finances, mental health, relationships, employment and family wellbeing. GambleAware NSW also recognises that the effects extend beyond the person gambling to intimate partners, families and communities. [Source]

  • GamblingLess: In-The-Moment and Gambling Habit Hacker are two complementary smartphone-delivered just-in-time adaptive interventions developed for different points on the gambling-harm spectrum. [Source]

  • GamblingLess: In-The-Moment is designed for people who want to reduce or stop gambling. It uses three daily check-ins to identify moments of cognitive vulnerability and provide tailored support addressing cravings, confidence and positive expectations about gambling. [Source]

  • Gambling Habit Hacker supports people who want to reduce their gambling by helping them set expenditure goals, monitor risk and use tailored action and coping strategies when they may struggle to stay within their chosen limits. [Source]

  • Both apps were evaluated through usability testing, 28-day micro-randomised trials, single-arm outcome evaluations, detailed acceptability and engagement research, and feasibility research. [Source]

  • Both apps well exceeded minimum acceptability standards and were generally perceived by participants as effective in supporting reductions in gambling behaviour. [Source 1, Source 2]

  • GamblingLess: In-The-Moment participants reported reducing gambling through regular check-ins, timely availability, personal tailoring, integrated support, and suitability to participants’ treatment experiences; and supporting behaviour change through increased awareness, goal setting, skill development, and positive habit formation. [Source]

  • Gambling Habit Hacker was found to be acceptable as a way of supporting adherence to gambling expenditure limits. Participants reported increased awareness and knowledge, changes in gambling-related attitudes, and created more than 1,300 action and coping plans during the trial. [Source]

  • GamblingLess: In-The-Moment delivery was associated with improvements in gambling symptoms, gambling frequency, gambling expenditure, craving intensity, self-efficacy and positive gambling outcome expectations at the post-intervention and six-month follow-up. At six months, 66.5% of participants reported recovery or improvement in gambling symptom severity. [Source]

  • Gambling Habit Hacker participants showed significant improvements in gambling expenditure, gambling symptom severity, gambling frequency, situational self-efficacy, psychological distress and wellbeing. These improvements were maintained at the six-month follow-up evaluation. [Source 1, Source 2]

  • Both apps received funding from the NSW Government’s Responsible Gambling Fund and are publicly available to Australian users through GambleAware NSW. [Source]

  • Deakin University confirms that Professor Nicki Dowling is the Senior Research Lead of the Gambling Research and Treatment Group in the Deakin Lifespan, leading a clinical research programme focused on the identification, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harm for people who gamble and those affected by another person’s gambling. [Source]

  • Her gambling research spans well over two decades, including multiple projects involving the development, evaluation, and translation of evidence-based and theoretically-informed treatments for people who gambling and their family members and friends, including the GamblingLess suite of innovative mHealth gambling interventions. [Source]