Councils plead for action to stem soaring pokie losses

Key points

• Gamblers lost almost $104 million playing poker machines in Brimbank over the first seven months of this financial year.
• Victorians lost $1.82 billion to gaming machines in the seven months to the end of January.
• The issue of gambling machine harm has been a key focus of the NSW election campaign.

Councils grappling with the worst pokie losses in the state are demanding the Andrews government introduce cashless gaming machines and other tough rules to stem the billions of dollars being gambled away.

In Brimbank alone, gamblers lost almost $104 million playing poker machines over the first seven months of this financial year – the highest loss rate in Victoria.

Last week, the council in Melbourne’s west passed a unanimous motion urging the state government to follow NSW and Tasmania and introduce cashless cards and pre-commitment rules that force gamblers to set maximum losses before playing, among other reforms.

A group of Victorian councils wants tougher rules to tackle problem gambling.Credit:Flavio Brancaleone

Victorians lost $1.82 billion to gaming machines in the seven months to the end of January – 13 per cent higher than the same period in 2018-2019, before COVID hit – the latest figures from the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission show. Losses in the state this financial year are on track to exceed $3 billion for the first time.

Independent councillor Virginia Tachos, who moved the motion, said almost $500,000 a day was being drained through Brimbank’s 953 electronic gaming machines, compounding a cycle of misery for many families in the area.

“We desperately need these reforms in Brimbank, otherwise they will keep people in poverty,” she said. “Putting these [electronic gaming machines] in the poorest corridors is not an accident. This is what keeps people disadvantaged in the western suburbs. The state government have got to weigh up the social costs.”

Casey Council, which recorded the second-highest losses in the state, is also pressing for tough reforms to help deal with problem gambling and money laundering. The council’s chair of administrators, Noelene Duff, said almost $100 million had been lost in the municipality in the seven months to January alone.

Duff said the council had signed a joint letter to Premier Daniel Andrews along with six other municipalities – Hume, Monash, Whittlesea, Darebin, Dandenong and Wyndham – urging the government to follow NSW and Tasmania, both of which have announced reforms.

“This includes the introduction of mandatory cashless pre-commitment cards,” she said.

Alliance for Gambling Reform chief executive Carol Bennett said councils had been forced to deal with the real-world consequences of soaring losses and gambling harm.

“The councils deal with all of that, and it is costly in social, health and economic terms, and it has a real impact on those communities,” Bennett said. “It makes sense on a whole range of levels that councils would support cashless gaming.”

Premier Daniel Andrews has been circumspect about the prospect of further pokie reforms.Credit:Scott McNaughton

Bennett said it was disappointing that Andrews had not been a stronger supporter of further reforms, suggesting the government was not prepared to forgo the tax revenue and political donations from the gambling industry.

“It is disappointing that the premier would take that position when the ALP supposedly supports some of the most vulnerable, disadvantaged communities in Victoria,” she said. “People deserve better. They deserve strong, better regulation around gambling and its impact.”

The push comes amid growing support among Victorians for reforms to tackle poker machine harm.

A survey by Resolve Strategic, undertaken exclusively this month for The Sunday Age, found 42 per cent support for the introduction of cashless gaming in Victoria, with a further 36 per cent of respondents undecided and 22 per cent against.

An earlier Resolve poll found 62 per cent of NSW voters supported the introduction of cashless gaming – 20 percentage points higher than in Victoria – with only 16 per cent of voters against and 23 per cent undecided.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is promising to crack down on poker machine losses.Credit:Flavio Brancaleone

The issue of gambling machine harm has been a key focus of the campaign for the March 25 NSW state election. Premier Dominic Perrottet has promised to ban cash from pokies and force gamblers to commit to maximum losses before playing, among other reforms.

Tasmania has also announced sweeping changes, including a mandatory pre-commitment system to prevent individual gamblers from spending more than $5000 a year on poker machines unless they apply to increase their limit.

In Victoria, the state government is pressing ahead with mandatory pre-commitment rules for the 2628 poker machines at Crown casino, following the recommendations of the Finkelstein royal commission into the venue.

Although Perrottet has invited Victoria to join forces with NSW, Premier Daniel Andrews has been circumspect about the prospect of further changes. The state’s 27,291 poker machines located in clubs and hotels are covered by a voluntary pre-commitment system for problem gamblers called YourPlay that has been criticised as ineffective.

Resolve Strategic director Jim Reed said the poll showed Victorians were leaning towards supporting the introduction of cashless gaming, with double the number of people in favour of it than were against it. But he said the level support was weaker than in NSW because the concept was newer to Victorians.

“The issues of problem gambling and money laundering have been front and centre in the lead up to the NSW election, so it’s entered the psyche of voters there in a way it hasn’t in Victoria yet,” Reed said. “It’s a much more nascent debate south of the border.”

Reed said the issue had been prominent in NSW because there wasn’t much else to differentiate the parties for voters. “Our research shows that it isn’t important enough to drive vote choices directly, but it is allowing people to make judgments about the two fairly new party leaders.”

Victorian councils other than those mentioned above are similarly worried.

At Melton, where $52.4 million has been lost so far this financial year, the council’s manger of community planning, Elyse Rider, said tackling problem gambling was a priority and the council also backed cashless gaming.

A spokeswoman for Victorian Gaming Minister Melissa Horne said the government noted “the various motions moved by respective councils.

“We will continue to monitor the arrangements for hotels and clubs across the state to ensure we have the appropriate regulatory settings and reserve the right to make further changes,” she said.

Since 2012, Victoria has banned the use of ATMs in most gaming venues, but not Crown. The state has also introduced tougher maximum bet limits on machines and caps on the number of machines allowed at venues.

According to an analysis by Monash University gambling expert Professor Charles Livingstone, the average player in Victoria lost $2822 in 2021-22. That was much lower than in NSW, where the average player lost $4525 over the most recent full year of figures available, which in the case of NSW covered the 2021 calendar year for hotels, and the year to May 2021 for clubs.

Previous analysis by The Age showed poker machine taxes also pumped proportionately more into the NSW budget than that of Victoria.

Victoria is expected to raise about $1.2 billion from poker machine taxes next financial year, excluding poker machines at Crown, following a sharp drop in 2019-20 and 2021-22 linked to coronavirus restrictions. That compares with about $2 billion expected from NSW pub and hotel gaming machines in 2022-23.

In Victoria, gaming machine revenue was equivalent to about 4 per cent of total tax revenue last financial year, compared with 5.1 per cent in NSW. By mid-2026, the proportion in Victoria is expected to fall to 3.8 per cent.

In contrast, stamp duty on houses raised about $10.2 billion last financial year, equivalent to about 33.9 per cent of Victoria’s total tax revenue, while payroll tax raised $6.5 billion, or 21.7 per cent of the total tax haul.

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