Politicians in South Australia are planning to make big changes to the local poker machine market. They will be making amendments to current poker machine laws that have the potential to reduce problem gambling rates across the state. Firstly, the amendments would categorize pokies into two different groups: major and minor.
Major clubs will are those that have a limit of 60 machines or more while minor clubs have a limit of 20 machines. Major clubs would be required to employ responsible gambling practices aimed at reducing problem gambling rates while minor clubs would only be permitted to host pokies if gambling is presented as an incidental activity. As such, minor clubs would not be able to derive most of their profits from pokies.
"I believe that these measures will mean that a number of small venues will decide 'look, this is not a bad opportunity for us to exit the gaming world altogether'," says Deputy Premier John Rau. Previous studies have concluded that there is a correlation between the number of gambling venues in an area and its population of problem gamblers.
If minor poker machine clubs were to close down, there would be fewer opportunities for problem gamblers to spend money on pokies. It is hoped that this would result in a decline of problem gambling rates. These are the biggest changes that the government has made to South Australia’s poker machine market since 1990.
In just over 20 years, problem gambling rates have skyrocketed, and it is important for local politicians to take the initiative to enforce responsible gambling measures among local gaming club operators. There is still a long way to go, however. South Australia’s sinking lid policy originally aimed to get rid of 3000 poker machines across the state by 2017.
While the initiative took off with great success, the past few years has seen progressed slowed and almost completely halted. With the new changes to poker machine legislation, South Australian politicians hope that they can meet their goal.
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