Canberra wants to reduce pokies

The ACT government wants to reduce the number of poker machines by July 2020.

Australia.- The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government is considering ideas on how to reduce the numbers of poker machines in the territory. The proposed changes would force clubs to hand hack one in five machines over a three year period.

Canberra would reduce the number of pokies from 4985 to 4000 by July 2020. As local news outlet Canberra Times reported, a discussion paper that was released last week suggested that clubs could be forced to hand back a number of machines each year: it could be either approximately 320 per year or 230 in 2018, 350 in 2019 and 410 in 2020. With both of these proposals, most clubs would lose 20 to 21 percent of machines overall, and small clubs with less than 20 machines would be exempt. Vikings Group, the biggest parlor in town, would reduce the existing 715 machines to 565, whilst the Southern Cross Club would lose 144 machines.

Last month, Club ACT asked the ACT government to fund an independent officer to tackle the problem within its venues. The group called for territory-wide exclusion for problem gamblers, in a five-point plan to work on problem gambling. The GGR tax was raised from 0.6 per cent to 0.75 percent on July 1 and the ACT government explained the additional funds will go into helping problem gamblers.