By Rev. Tim Costello

Chair, Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce

Poker machines are in the limelight. Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s minority government is in place courtesy of Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie, a bloke with a passion for making poker machine gambling safer.

In return for his support, the Government must pass legislation by May next year that requires all poker machine players to decide ahead of time how much they are willing to lose on poker machines in any gambling session.

These limits can be as high or as low as the player likes. No one is telling them how much they can or can’t spend. Once ‘in the zone’ problem gamblers say they can’t make safe choices.  In a sober moment, in the cold light of day, players can, and want to, limit their losses.

But the industry is not happy. Forty per cent of their profits come from people addicted to poker machines. As the reforms take effect, the clubs and pubs that depend on revenue from people with a gambling problem will experience significant losses.

In the light of these predicted losses they have launched a self interested, misleading grass roots campaign in NSW and Queensland, crying clubs will go broke, that jobs will be lost and communities will fall apart.

A business model that depends on other people’s misery is indefensible on ethical and economic grounds.

Australia has the highest number of poker machines per head in the world. There are 197,000 of them nationally and around half are in NSW. We’re not talking about the one-arm bandits that took 20 cent pieces.  It’s possible to feed $12,000 an hour into modern high intensity machines and to lose around $1,500 an hour. The machines are designed to increase playing time and addiction. It’s a very unsafe product for some.

Because most Australians don’t play poker machines, most are unaware of the risks involved.

Australians spend twelve billion dollars a year on pokies. Only 600,000 Australians play poker machines at least weekly, and of those 95,000 are problem gamblers who account for 40 per cent of spending on poker machines. This group loses on average up to $21,000 a year. Some lose a lot more. Another 95,000 are at risk of becoming problem gamblers. So pokies are a problem for around a third of regular players.

Poker machine addiction affects individuals, families and communities and disproportionately affects people who are already financially vulnerable. Poker machine venues are most strongly concentrated in poorer suburbs and areas. A recent ANU poll says that compared to the rest of the adult population, people who gamble on activities other than lottery or scratch tickets are more likely to be male and young.

The social costs of poker machine addiction are high, including relationship breakdown, mental health problems, unemployment, debt, financial hardship, theft and other crime, social isolation and all too often, suicide. These problems cost of around $4.7 billion annually.

It’s mandatory to wear a seatbelt, to wear a helmet on a bike. It’s illegal to serve alcohol to someone who is already drunk and there are limits on where people can smoke, to prevent the impact of passive smoking. This is all good public policy that has led to healthier communities.

Mandatory pre commitment measures will as part of a raft of measures, help problem gamblers who are ready to help themselves and protect a significant number of at risk players from becoming problem gamblers.

And most Australians are happy with that.

Recent polls consistently show at least two thirds of Australians support the Government’s proposed mandatory pre commitment measures, that most Australians want clear action to reduce the harm being done by poker machines, and that Australians have not been taken in by the industry campaign against reform.

I want to assure politicians that while many in the community find it difficult to speak publicly in support of the reforms, the anonymous polls we have seen this year are a more accurate measure of community support than the well resourced, self interested industry campaign.

I urge all people of good will to speak out for safer communities as the industry brings its misleading campaign to their neighbourhood in the months ahead.

Members of the Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce include the heads of Australian Christian Churches and the heads of their social services agencies nationally, united by a commitment to make poker machine gambling safer.