Canberra to define poker status

ACT Greens party introduced a restriction proposal for poker machines.

Australia.- Only one week before the elections of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, the ACT Greens party presented a project to reduce the amount of poker machines by a third in the capital territory.

The political proposal would also establish betting limits of AUS$1 (US$0,75) across Canberra’s gaming centres. Furthermore, all gamblers would be required to make a precommitment on how much they were willing to lose, before they started playing.

“These measures are about saying we recognise that problem gambling has a serious impact on our community, we need to take serious steps to address it. Betting limits and precommitments have been identified by the productivity commission as the most effective way of addressing the harms of problem gambling,” commented Greens leader Shane Rattenbury.

And he added: “For too long, we’ve had too many poker machines in this town, and they do have a terrible impact in our community. The Greens have developed a suite of measures to support clubs to end their reliance on pokies. We’ll be prepared to work with anybody in the assembly who is elected to get some of these measures put in place.”