Calls for Australian national gambling harm regulator amid US 7 7bn pokies losses

The Chief Advocate at the Alliance for Gambling Reform has called for the federal government and the states to establish a national gambling harm regulator in Australia, amid new research that found Australians lost over AU$11

The Chief Advocate at the Alliance for Gambling Reform has called for the federal governing and the states to found a national gaming harm regulator inwards Australia, amid unexampled search that found Australians lost o'er AU$11.4bn (US$7.74bn) on stove poker machines inward a single year.

Pokies losses did correct inwards capital of Seychelles and New South Cambria past around 17% compared to pre-pandemic levels, mainly due to pandemic closures and restrictions, but they were higher inwards Queensland, South Commonwealth of Australia and Tasmania compared to 2018/19. In Queen Victoria alone, gaming simple machine users lost over AU$2.2bn over the 2021/22 financial year, with the ordinary Victorian user losing around AU$2,800.

The figures, compiled by the Gambling and Social Determinants Unit at Monash University, include poker game machines at pubs and clubs, not at casinos.

Chief Advocate at the Alliance for Gambling Reform Tim Costello expects the losses to farm despite people facing cost-of-living pressure and declining existent wages.

“It goes upwardly below stress,” said Costello. “People literally either get some embossment from sitting in the zona inwards forepart of the machine, or they have a belief: I’m stuffed anyway, I can’t make up the split or the mortgage anyway, but the pokies are maybe a shot.”

Costello has called for the national play harm regulator to live naturalized to go under out the financial, societal and health consequences of stove poker political machine habituation inwards the country. Commonwealth of Australia has 75% of the world’s pub and order pokies.

Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC), Victoria’s unexampled gaming watchdog, late warned that tougher laws on money laundering and problem gaming at Crown Melbourne could lay on the line pushing pokie addicts and criminals to pubs and clubs.