Kyle Hudson died by suicide at his family's Werribee home in July 2021. The inquest heard that over four years, the young university student gambled almost $900,000 after beginning to bet at age 18. He was flooded with nearly 500 inducements from gambling companies, more than 300 of which came from Sportsbet alone.
Coroner Lawrie found Sportsbet failed to intervene despite clear warning signs. Hudson triggered the company's internal harm alerts 37 times, and had his account suspended eight times, only for Sportsbet to unlock it each time. The inquest was told that on one occasion, an alarm was sparked after Hudson deposited $9,000 on bets in a week, resulting in only a 14-day account break.
'I find that Kyle's online gambling was the direct and paramount causative factor underlying his decision to take his own life,' Lawrie said in his findings. He said he found it 'chilling' that Sportsbet still maintained Hudson was not a problem gambler, telling the court 'I do not accept this proposition.'
Hudson's partner, Ashley Baker, described him as the 'kindest person ever' and warned what happened to him 'can easily happen, and it's happening to young men across Australia.' His brother Ryan asked: 'How can we accept this as a society?'
A spokesman for Sportsbet told The Age the company respected the inquest and was 'carefully reviewing the coroner's findings and recommendations,' acknowledging 'there is more to do' on consumer protections.
The coroner recommended urgent gambling reform, including the creation of a single national online gambling regulator and a National Data Vault to track betting activity across platforms. He also called for mandatory deposit and loss limits for young account holders, warning that 'we cannot leave monitoring and intervention solely in the hands of the betting companies.'