By Coco Williams, Elisha Andres, Harper Pestinger and Oliver Walker-Peel.
“I hated it. I hated what I’d become” says Anna Bardsley, a poker machine addict-turned advocate.
For more than a decade, Anna Bardsley has grappled with addiction. She never thought she’d be a gambler yet, she found herself stuck behind poker machines “scrambling at the bottom of the bag for another dollar”.
Of all the state’s local government areas (LGAs), people in the City of Brimbank sunk the most money into gambling venues – $173 million.
Brimbank also comes third in Victoria for socio-economic disadvantage.
In response to these stark numbers, IPC Health, one of Victoria’s largest healthcare providers, ran its Young Leaders of the West (YLOTW) program from 2018 to 2022.
The initiative was geared towards educating young people – aged 18 to 25 – about gambling harm and the perils of addiction
IPC community engagement officer Sarah-Jane Blunt says the idea was about “reducing the normalisation of gambling in young communities.”
The cycle of gambling harm can start early. Unbeknown to parents, some children’s games are designed to manipulate and hook kids into gambling leading to addiction.
“We’re concerned about video gaming and simulated gambling,” says Blunt. “ Many video games have actually got gambling elements included in them, like pokies or a roulette table.”
“It comes back to that normalisation of gambling and making children think that [it] is normal.”
The IPC approach encouraged young leaders to co-design ways to minimise gambling’s effects on the community and spread awareness and acccording to Blunt, was “very successful”.
“We recruited schools in the west to attend a youth forum. We then had ten schools come together and make a podcast where they interview[ed] a person with lived gambling experience,” Blunt says.
“The students loved it and benefited enormously,” and IPC Health hopes to restart the program if funding is granted.
YLOTW partnered with Melbourne artist Sebastian Fransz to create the gambling harm mural. Located on the corner of Ford Avenue and Furlong Road, Sunshine North.
Photos: Elisha Andres.
Brief history of pokies in Australia
From two-up on ANZAC Day to horse and dog racing, Australians have always loved to gamble. But in the 1950s the ante was upped. Following in the footsteps of the United States, poker machines were introduced.
Then, when the federal government realised its potential as a lucrative source of tax revenue, a ban on casinos was lifted in 1973.
Since then, gambling has skyrocketed.
Victoria has gone through phases of introducing tighter gambling laws since 1991, when Joan Kirner’s Labor government legislated the Gaming Machine Control and Casino Control Acts.
These two were the first bills to regulate electronic gambling machine (EGM) use in Victoria.
However, despite many attempted reforms Victorians’ losses continue to rise. In the 2022–2023 financial year, Victoria lost more than $3 billion on pokies.
In August last year, the State Government introduced laws requiring venues to close their poker machine areas between 4am and 10am.
The Allan government says the new operating hours are aimed to help patrons become ‘more aware about their gambling behaviours’.
So what are the key factors driving the uptake of gambling?
The Grattan Institute released a report in September, outlining how accessibility to gambling venues increases one’s chances of harm.
Report author Elizabeth Baldwin is pushing for meaningful reform and educating Australians on gambling’s consequences.
“Our research suggests that having the extra cues to gamble when you’re walking past a venue on your street encourages more gambling than would otherwise occur,” she says.
The Grattan report shows people living less than 250 metres from a venue experience greater financial distress and impaired mental health.
The report also reveals financial hardship is another trigger for gambling.
Worsening Brimbank socio-economic struggles is the looming presence of 15 gambling venues in the area .
Altogether, these venues hold 953 poker machines. For comparison, Brimbank has 25 public toilets.
So why is gambling reform so hard?
With the gambling industry making up eight per cent of Victoria’s tax revenue, the state’s government has struggled to cut ties.
“Governments haven’t been interested in providing appropriate regulation and systems to ensure that people don’t end up getting harmed [by gambling],” says Dr Charles Livingstone.
He’s an associate professor in public health and preventive medicine at Monash University, and one of the country’s foremost pokies harm researchers.
Given the federal government received $5.8 billion in tax revenue in 2020 alone, Livingstone thinks getting authorities “to even consider reforms is quite a challenge”.
According to Elizabeth Baldwin, political donations and lobbying are yet more factors. The Grattan Institute’s 2018 report was the first to study political lobbying’s connection to policy reform.
“Gambling reform issues are under the spotlight. When they’re being considered, donations from the industry tend to spike”, she says.
Leading into the 2019 federal election, the Australian Hotels Association, concerned the Greens would achieve the balance of power and introduce pokies restrictions, donated $1 million to rival Victorian candidates.
“We think that these really concerted and sophisticated influence attempts by the industry are one of the major reasons we haven’t seen action to reduce gambling harm,” Baldwin says.
For now, according to Dr Livingstone, a total ban on EGM use in Australia is “unlikely”.
“The best thing to do would be to implement a system of pre-commitment registration,” Dr Livingstone suggests.
Some poker machines require patrons to sign up for an account and receive a unique identifying card to be brought to every venue, every time.
“You put that in the machine, and it sees who you are. Now, since almost all poker machines in Australia are networked together on a jurisdictional basis, that means that you can record how much you’ve gambled across the state,” he says.
Regardless of how many different machines and how many different venues one has been to, all gambling activity is monitored and recorded.
Baldwin agrees that pre-loss limits would be a game-changer.
“You can’t set a limit of a million dollars a day unless you can prove that you can afford that. We don’t want to see people losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, or losing their house in a short space of time,” she says.
Germany, Finland and Norway among others have applied limits. Tasmania’s move to do the same has been delayed until the end of 2025.
Baldwin argues it is possible for gambling to be safe, as long as there are regulations in place.
“We are not trying to demonize gamblers, or take away the fun from people who enjoy the game,” she says.
“People who enjoy gambling can still do so and in most cases, won’t be affected by what we’re proposing.
“It’ll just be a seatbelt for gambling losses.”
