A row has broken out in Australia after a pub owner demanded that a A$1 maximum stake be imposed on the country’s gaming machines.
Australian slots are called poker machines ("pokies") because of their card symbols and the country has slightly less than 200,000 in total. A report in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review claimed that major site owner Wesfarmers had been frustrated in its bid to have the $1 limit imposed on its 3,000-plus poker machines by a lack of co-operation from machine manufacturers.
The mainly retail group had no sympathy from its retail rival, Woolworths, which has about 12,000 slots and had firmly refused to impose a limit. The trade association, the Gaming Technologies Association, immediately issued a statement in which it said the cost of transforming the country’s poker machines to $1 play would amount to around $3bn. It also said that it was "puzzled" that constructive dialogue that had been taking place on the subject of problem gambling had been misrepresented.
Chief executive Ross Ferrar commented: “As part of this engagement, GTA members have suggested a broad range of harm minimisation measures immediately available that have been widely adopted by other operators and venues. These include machine based measures, system measures (voluntary pre-commitment, enhanced player information displays and alarms) and venue-based programmes.”
The Wesfarmers demand for stake limitation is headed by its subsidiary Coles, which operates the machines through its pubs. It alleges that it had contacted the five main machine manufacturers asking for the games to be reconfigured, but all had refused. Australia’s $11.6bn poker machine industry will probably now come under the political spotlight this year. It is operated principally through the clubs system, which has a very powerful lobby.
Ross Ferrar said: “It is an indisputable fact that Australia has among the lowest maximum bets in the world for poker machines and that speed of play in Australia is among the slowest in the world. Our industry remains committed to progressing harm minimisation initiatives where they are shown to be effective.”
