Victoria to introduce strict new pokies rules to limit problem gambling

The amount of money people can put into pokies will be slashed and the hours the machines are allowed to operate will be limited as part of a raft of new rules in Victoria.

Premier Daniel Andrews has announced a range of new measures to try to protect problem gamblers. Picture: Valeriu Campan NCA NewsWire.

The amount of money people can put into a poker machine in one go will be slashed as part of a raft of major new reforms aimed at tackling gambling related harm.

Under the changes, all Victorian pokies venues – with the exception of Crown Casino – will be forced to close for six hours each day, between 4am and 10am.

Gamblers will also have to use identification before they can use a poker machine and will have to set a maximum limit of how much they are prepared to lose each day.

Load up limits, the amount of money people can put into a machine for a round of play, will be capped at $100 – down from the current limit of $1000.

Every new pokies machine will also be required to spin at a rate of three seconds per game, from 2.1 seconds, in a bid to slow the pace of playing down.

Premier Daniel Andrews and Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation Minister Melissa Horne unveiled the new measures on Sunday but stopped short of implementing cashless gaming, without notes or coins, which anti-gambling advocates have long called for.

Crown Casino will introduce cashless gaming on its casino floors by the end of this year.

Gambling reform advocates said it would have made sense for the government to extend this to all suburban pokies venues, because cashless gaming tracks spending habits and prevents money laundering.

Daniel Andrews making the announcement on Sunday. Picture: Valeriu Campan NCA NewsWire.

Alliance for Gambling Reform spokesman Tim Costello welcomed the changes after 25 years of campaigning but said it fell short of what was required to combat the scale of the issue.

He said Australia housed 75 per cent of the world’s pokies venues inside its pubs and clubs.

“The accessibility (of pokies venues) here in Victoria, and in Australia, is the reason we have the greatest gambling losses in the world - 40 per cent higher than the nation that comes second (Singapore),” he said.

“Victorians have suffered with the dirty little secret that governments are in bed with this predatory industry. At last, they’ve been given reform that empowers them.”

But Mr Andrews, who has left the door open for further reforms, said he was confident his changes would help to protect the estimated 330,000 Victorians experiencing gambling harm every year.

“Making it harder to get to a position where you’ve lost a completely unsustainable amount of money is obviously a good thing to do,” he said.

“This is not anonymous play anymore … At the moment, we can all go down there now and we can put $1000 in, and the machine doesn’t know who we are. Provided that we aren’t on some self-exclusion list, we can do pretty much whatever we want and at the end of the session, who knows how much money we’ve lost.”

Carolyn Crawford, 71, was jailed in 2016 after she stole $400,000 from her employer to fund her gambling addiction.

She said two thirds of the women in prison with her had also been jailed because of gambling.

Daniel Andrews hugs Caroline Crawford, who was a victim of addictive gambling. Picture: Valeriu Campan NCA NewsWire.

“I had never had a parking ticket in my life. I had never committed any sort of crime whatsoever, but here I am going to prison because I stole, over seven years, $400,000 from my employer,” she said.

“Addiction to me was drugs and alcohol. It wasn’t playing these machines. These machines were supposed to be fun. It turned out not to be fun for me.

“I had no luxuries. I never went on holidays, nothing. It’s an insidious and horrible disease, and it is an addiction. It is the same as taking cocaine.”

Ms Crawford, who has paid all the money back to her former employer through her super and her father’s inheritance, said she wouldn’t have ended up in prison had these measures been in place during her addiction.

“It’s not easy to stand in front of a group of strangers and tell you the sort of things I’ve done. Stealing money is not nice. Hurting people is not nice but I do this because change has to happen,” she said.

Caroline Crawford was jailed after stealing money to fuel her gambling addiction. Picture: Valeriu Campan NCA NewsWire.

“It has to save lives, and I know many people that aren’t here to talk with you about it because they have taken their own lives because of gambling.”

Community Clubs Victoria chief executive Andrew Lloyd said the organisation and its member clubs are committed to a “sustainable and socially responsible gaming model that protects vulnerable people”.

“We remain concerned about hyper-regulation and gambling migrating to the online space, without the same supervision in a physical environment. We are aware of examples of children obtaining accounts using their grandparents’ ID,” he said.