{"id":17219,"date":"2021-04-26T16:10:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T16:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=17219"},"modified":"2026-04-23T20:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:05:09","slug":"australia-record-spend-on-tasmanian-poker-machines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/australia-record-spend-on-tasmanian-poker-machines","title":{"rendered":"Australia: record spend on Tasmanian poker machines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Player losses on Tasmanian poker machines have have reached almost AU$70,000 per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australia.- A&nbsp;<strong>record amount of money has been spent on poker machines<\/strong>&nbsp;in Tasmania during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the<strong>&nbsp;Tasmania Liquor and Gaming Commission,<\/strong>&nbsp;losses on poker machines have reached&nbsp;<strong>almost AU$500m since March 2018<\/strong>, when the Liberal Government was re-elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Poker machine venues were closed from March 23 to June 26 last year due to<strong>&nbsp;Covid-19 restrictions&nbsp;<\/strong>but since reopening, the number of&nbsp;<strong>daily losses reached over AU$545,000 a day<\/strong>,&nbsp;which represents an increase of nearly AU$70,000 compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the Tasmanian Inquirer newspaper,&nbsp;<strong>Meg Webb<\/strong>, an independent member for the Legislative Council seat of Nelson, has stated that&nbsp;<strong>half the money lost on Tasmanian poker machines comes from people who are addicted&nbsp;to gambling<\/strong> or in at-risk categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;<strong>Northern Territory of Australia&nbsp;<\/strong>faces a similar issue, reporting&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/australia-record-spend-on-poker-machines-in-northern-territory\">poker machine player losses&nbsp;<\/a><strong>reached AU$25m (US$19.03m) in July 2020,<\/strong>&nbsp;up 52 per cent from the prior-year period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Player losses on Tasmanian poker machines have have reached almost AU$70,000 per day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Tasmania has reported record poker machine losses, reaching nearly AU$500m since March 2018, with daily losses exceeding AU$545,000 post-COVID-19 reopening. This surge, representing a AU$70,000 daily increase year-over-year, raises significant concerns regarding problem gambling, with an independent legislator asserting that half of these losses stem from at-risk individuals. The Northern Territory also experienced a 52% increase in poker machine losses in July 2020, highlighting a broader Australian issue.","focusai_entities":"Tasmania Liquor and Gaming Commission, Liberal Government, Meg Webb, Tasmanian Inquirer newspaper","focusai_location":"Tasmania, Australia, Northern Territory, Nelson","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Regulatory Response","query":"What specific policy interventions or enhanced responsible gambling measures are the Tasmania Liquor and Gaming Commission and the Liberal Government considering to address the escalating poker machine losses and mitigate problem gambling risks?"},{"label":"Operator Impact","query":"How might the sustained increase in poker machine GGR, coupled with heightened public scrutiny, influence the social license to operate and future investment strategies for major gaming operators in Tasmania and the broader Australian market?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17219"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17255,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17219\/revisions\/17255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}