More than 70,000 vouchers have been claimed so far worth a whopping $7.03 million, helping to ease the cost-of-living pressures on families.

The Sports Vouchers offer a $100 discount on sports, dance and swimming lesson memberships or registration fees.

Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing Corey Wingard said $7.03 million is a significant amount of cash being saved to spend on other things.

“The Marshall Government believes that cost should never be a barrier to allowing our kids to be more active which is why we doubled the value of the voucher from $50 to $100 when we came into government in 2018,” Minister Wingard said.

“Our beefed-up program has proven extremely popular with more than $7 million worth of vouchers claimed in 2021.

“We also expanded the program to include dance and swimming and this year announced it was also going to include years 8 and 9.

“We promised we would lower costs for families and our decision to double the value of sports vouchers and by including older kids and additional activities, is doing exactly that.”

Mum of three from Greenwith Miwa Wood says the sports vouchers make a big difference to the family budget.

“Because we have three children playing sport the registration fees really add up,” Ms Wood said.

“The Sports Vouchers really help to ease the financial pressure and mean we can spend that money on other things like going out for dinner and family camping trips.

“The vouchers also mean it’s easier for my kids to be active and spend less time inside on devices.”

The top five sports in 2021 are Aussie Rules (17,653), football/soccer (9,101), Netball (7,708), swimming (7,431) and gymnastics (6,226).

The top suburbs are Mt Gambier (1,080), Mt Barker (862), Morphett Vale (819), Port Lincoln (808) and Parafield Gardens (677).

Since 2018 South Australian families have claimed 272,411 vouchers worth a total of $24 million.

Even last year (2020) – with COVID restrictions and a few months of no sport – 68,733 vouchers were claimed worth $6.8 million.