St Luke's has received a funding commitment of $900,000 per year for the next four years from the state government funded Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. 

These include multilingual services, culturally appropriate counselling, community education and the coordination of referrals and appointments between support organisations.

In an effort to become more accessible St Luke's gambler's help services will extend opening hours and offer remote counselling. People can also seek help via a two-click form online.

Ms Grinter said $900,000 a year was good but was not enough for St Luke's to do the full extent of what was needed to tackle problem gambling. 

If more money was available, Ms Grinter said there was a lot St Luke's could do in the region's prisons.

"A large percentage of clients end up in incarceration because of gambling," Ms Grinter said. 

She said St Luke's assisted 500 problem gamblers in the past 12 months but there were many more people they had not reached.

Ms Grinter said the organisation worked with the families of problem gamblers, not just the individual in isolation. 

Victoria Responsible Gambling Foundation chief executive Serge Sardo said preventing problem gambling was preferable to curing it.

Mr Sardo said the foundation had quadrupled its funding for prevention programs. 

He said a key challenge was that less than 10 per cent of people with a gambling problem ever sought help.

Mr Sardo said gambling advertisements through media and the sports industry were having an adverse affect on young men who were growing up thinking betting in sport was normal. 

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