Victoria increasingly isolated on pokies reform

It is puzzling that the Andrews Labor government, an administration that apparently prides itself on its social reform agenda, has so little appetite to tackle the scourge that is pokies addiction.

The harms have been laboriously chronicled. Problem gambling destroys lives and spills grief onto families and communities. It is a contributing factor in incidents of theft, robbery and fraud. The pokies themselves are ingeniously designed to extract money from the vulnerable, including those who can least afford it. Victorians are on track to lose $3 billion to these diabolical machines this financial year, taking our total losses to some $70 billion since they were legalised by the Kirner Labor government in 1991.

Gambling experts say Victoria needs tougher rules to tackle problem gambling.Credit:Flavio Brancaleone

Time and again activists have demanded reforms to better protect those who cannot protect themselves. Yet our government’s response has been about as minimal as it can get away with.

It did adopt some of the recommendations of the 2021 Finkelstein inquiry, introducing legislation to better regulate the 2628 pokies on the floor of Crown casino. But it ignored calls to have similar restrictions rolled out across the other 26,380 poker machines in pubs, clubs and RSL venues across the state, many in disadvantaged catchment areas.

Not so fast, the government will no doubt say, pointing in the direction of its “YourPlay” pokies card, which it introduced in 2015 to help gamblers track playing habits and set time and cash limits.

What a joke. Being voluntary, take-up of YourPlay has been marginal: “very low”, according to a 2019 report that found it accounted for just $1 out of every $10,000 wagered on Victorian poker machines in hotels and clubs in 2017-18. Commissioner Ray Finkelstein found the system, as it operated at Crown, had “not been successful”.

Neither is it encouraging that the YourPlay website has easy-to-find instructions on how to bypass its chief harm minimisation feature. “If you decide not to set limits, no problem,” it says. “Just select ‘No limit’ from the limit options.” No problem? It is a wonder how a government spokesperson managed to keep a straight face this week while claiming YourPlay “continues to help people make informed choices about how much time and money they are spending on gaming machines”.

Outside Victoria, substantive reforms are in train. In Tasmania, a card-based scheme will be mandatory for all pokies players by the end of 2024, with loss limits set at $100 a day and up to $5000 a year, which can only be raised if the player proves they can afford it. NSW has just pledged to make that state’s pokies cashless and loss-limited by the end of 2028.

Both are sensible reforms that strike the right balance between acknowledging that adults have responsibility for their gaming and offering some protection for those who cannot stop themselves exceeding what they would otherwise set as a reasonable spending limit. Gambling reform advocate Tim Costello says while NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s plan is not perfect, it is “pretty damn good”.

Despite overtures from Perrottet for the states to work together on national reforms, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been reluctant to follow suit. “Will there never be any future changes? I wouldn’t rule that out; I wouldn’t say that,” he equivocated last week. “For those for whom there is a real problem, a wicked problem [gambling addiction], we have to support them.”

Now is the chance for change. Until Victoria implements mandatory cashless cards, loss limits and maximum bet sizes – or another proven remedy – there is no safety net for the vulnerable in the gambling abyss. A premier truly committed to social good would figure out a way to wean us off this unethical revenue stream – $844 million in poker machine taxes in 2019-20 alone – and would turn his back on the powerful pokies lobby. Our supposedly progressive government looks increasingly isolated on this, if not downright hypocritical.

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