A step in the right direction but still weaksauce compared to WA banning them outright. They ruin not just the lives of gamblers and their families but also pub culture in general.
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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It isn't so much that WA banned them, they just never got a foothold, here.
Plenty of pokies at the casino if you want to go there, and there are even shuttle busses that will take old people to the casino totally free from assorted suburbs in the spirit of community service.
There's little interest in them here, either. Also no suburban pubs open until 7am.
Western Australians really don't know what they're missing out on, with no pokies in local pubs. And I'd personally love to keep it that way.
I thought they have actually been banned though? Aside from the casino.
There's this page from the state government:
Any gaming machine of the kind generally known or described as a poker machine, fruit machine (or any similar machine) is prohibited in Western Australia under section 85 of the Gaming and Wagering Commission Act 1987. Further, section 22 of the Casino Control Act 1984 allows the Commission to declare games authorised for use at the Casino, with the exception of games played with poker machines.
I'm certain they're not legal, or we'd see pubs trying them. My point was WA never had that thing where every pub has pokies in it in the first place.
And may they never have such a blight visit their good land. I'm sure once upon a time Victorian pubs were much nicer too...
About bloody time. I dream of a day when the majority of pubs are not pokie dens.
Community Clubs Victoria says hyper-regulation could send more people to online gambling
Translation: “if problem gamblers are hitting rock bottom, we want to be the ones to push them down.”
I used a poker machine once. Put in $5//10 came out on top by $5/10. Never touched one again. Drive them all into the desert and drop a bomb on them, IMO.
I did a similar thing on my first visit to Vegas. I put a quarter into a slot machine because I was a tourist. I won $25 and cashed out straight away.
The casino still got that money back though, I spent it on the New York New York rollercoaster.
$100 at a time. You can still put in $1000s in one session
EDIT: Actually I thought about it and at least you can only lose $100 at a time. It’s still a mess
Good
Was in Crown a few weeks ago. Hadn’t been there in 10 years, was there for a friends dinner. Out of curiosity walked through the gaming floor. There were SO MANY pokie machines. It was shocking to see. So sad for the people using them. I couldn’t help wondering how many were loosing their savings.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the changes would give Victoria the toughest electronic gambling restrictions in Australia.
Tas is limiting our cashless gambling card to $100 per day, $500 per month and a soft cap of $5,000 per year. I'd say you gotta try harder, Dan. You can tell it'll be effective because the hospitality and gaming industries are big mad about it.
This sounds like a great idea.
Is there anything in place to stop people having multiple cashless gambling cards?
The cards are ostensibly tied to your identity so I guess the penalties for fraud and/or identity theft is a barrier to having multiple cards. There is supposed to be a guest card system for out-of-state gamblers but those have an expiry date.
What this will mostly do is increase the underground gambling world, addiction is not something you fix by putting a limitation.
It still works as a harm reduction measure. As with all things, making things more difficult decreases the amount of people that do it. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Every little bit of pressure on these vices helps strangle the industry.
"but it'll just go underground" is a stupid reason to stand in the way of this