Inquiry into Kyle Hudson’s death

In the months after Kyle Hudson’s suicide, his older brother Ryan said his family were left grief stricken and confused as to how something so devastating could have happened.

“We all tortured ourselves,” Ryan Hudson said. “We worked it through to the point of acceptance that there were no signs and absolutely nothing we could have done.”

But at an inquest into Kyle’s death at the Victorian Coroner’s Court on Thursday, Ryan was overcome with emotion when discussing how he had learnt that betting agencies had flagged his brother as a high-risk gambler from the age of 18.

“How can we accept this as a society?” he said.

“The betting agencies did know the impact this gambling was having, and not only did they do very little about it, they encouraged him to engage in risky behaviour by offering inducements.”

Ryan said these same betting companies continued to flood his gentle, kind and adored brother with thousands of inducements encouraging him to punt over the four years between him turning 18 and his death when he was 22.

He described Kyle as someone who “was always laughing, always happy, and always appeared extremely capable”.

Victorian Coroner Paul Lawrie is probing several factors, including Hudson’s frequent interactions with online betting agencies, and how his history of online gambling may have contributed to his decision to end his life in 2021.

“Our hope is that outcomes from this inquest prevent other families having to experience what we have lived through losing someone as precious as Kyle,” Ryan said on Thursday.

Earlier, the court was told Hudson was “highly responsive” to the barrage of almost 500 targeted gambling inducements, which repeatedly drew the young man back into online sports betting.

Gambling harm expert Associate Professor Sean Cowlishaw told the inquest there appeared to be a pattern in which Hudson would try to reduce or stop his gambling for periods of time before a targeted offer seemed to draw him back in.

“It appears that Kyle’s gambling behaviours were highly responsive to gambling inducements,” he told the inquest.

The court heard that before his death, the 22-year-old redeemed 300 “bonus bets” from Sportsbet alone after opening his first account shortly after his 18th birthday.

“Kyle would go for periods of time without betting … after which he would receive an inducement … deposit funds and then wager these combined amounts until the account balance was reduced to zero,” Cowlishaw said.

He told the inquest that the intensity of these redeemed inducements reached a peak in the months before his suicide. In the first six months of 2021, before Hudson died on July 6, the vast majority of the inducements he received came from Sportsbet.

Cowlishaw said the university student did not appear to exhibit any of the usual risk factors of suicide. Instead, he said, Hudson had a loving partner and family, a strong social network of friends, a stable job and home. He was also pursuing his studies and was in his final year of an honours degree after completing a bachelor of construction management.

Hudson had no known history of mental illness and largely hid his gambling addiction from his family and friends, the court heard.

“In this instance, we know that, for example, histories of significant mental health problems, unemployment, social isolation or risk factors for suicide, it would appear that we can exclude those,” Cowlishaw said.

“This is not suggesting that in this respect, gambling is the only contributing factor, but rather through a process of elimination, starting to isolate what are the most likely and plausible determining factors.”

Cowlishaw also pointed to historical evidence that Hudson had linked suicidal thoughts to his gambling losses four years before he died, when he was on a holiday with his partner, Ashley Baker, in Phillip Island.

He told Baker, who he had been dating since he was 15, that he had gambled away $2000 his mother had given him for his 18th birthday.

“He told me he lost all his money and he wanted to die,” Baker told the inquest on Monday.

Cowlishaw said these reports of suicidal ideation following gambling losses suggested recognition and awareness of his difficulties controlling his gambling even then.

Baker also told the inquest that Hudson’s death had shattered her dreams about how she had imagined her life would turn out.

When she learnt that he was dead, she said her “whole body shut down”.

“Kyle’s death is something none of us saw coming … It was a moment that changed my life completely.”

She said she wanted Hudson to be remembered for the person he was and not “reduced to a statistic”.

“He had a quiet, gentle nature, and he was naturally introverted. But with the people he loved most, he opened up completely,” she said. “Kyle loved to laugh and had a great sense of humour. He did everything right and never caused trouble.”

Baker told the court that gambling-related suicide could be silent and hidden.

“From the outside, Kyle appeared calm, stable and coping,” she said. “What he was carrying was not visible to those who loved him most. What happened to Kyle can easily happen, and it’s happening to young men across Australia.

“There needs to be greater awareness, better mentoring and changes to prevent this from continuing. Kyle mattered. He was deeply loved.”

His older brother remembered Hudson as a talented athlete, and said his favourite memories of his mother’s “golden boy” were of him with a basketball or tennis ball in his hand, and playing footy with his beloved Werribee Tigers.

“He would glide across the football oval, always making it seem so effortless,” Ryan said.

“No matter how bunched up the players were or who was tagging Kyle, he would get above the pack and take the mark.”

Gambler’s Help: 1800 858 858. Lifeline: 13 11 14.

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