A recent report has shown that pokies spending is on the decline across Australia. It is an interesting turn of events, as spending on pokies has been on a sharp incline over the course of the past couple of years. Published by Roy Morgan research, the report shows that total gambling expenses have dropped by $800 million to $17.7 billion while pokies spending has dropped by $2.3 billion to $10.3 billion.
This is an interesting new perspective on Australia’s gambling and pokies markets, as politicians have been working hard to reduce the amount of spending on pokies amongst citizens. According to researchers at Roy Morgan, the decline in pokies spending is what has caused such a significant increase in overall gambling expenditures.
The country has seen a sharp increase in betting activity; however, this increase has not been significant enough to offset the spending decline for pokies. The report did not go into detail as to why this may be the case; however, we speculate that it could have something to do with the amount of negative press pokies have received lately.
Over the course of the past year, the debate over pokie reform is likely to have changed some opinions about poker machines and gambling.