HUNTER residents fed $423 million into poker machines in the 12 months to August, 2016, and the State government must consider urgent reform before communities are ripped apart.
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The stark message came from Reverend Tim Costello, in Newcastle on Thursday with the Alliance for Gambling Reform to voice its opposition to a controversial DA for a pub with pokies at the Huntlee development.
Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing figures for the 12 months to August, 2016, show that the turnover from pokies was $230,386,377 in Cessnock; $21,108,143 in Dungog and Gloucester; $1,066,309,150 in Gosford; $828,547,040 in Lake Macquarie; $258,977,526 in Maitland; $195,964,301 in Muswellbrook and Singleton; $1,258,381,429 in Newcastle; and $45,067,995 in the Upper Hunter.
Mr Costello said the nation had 20 per cent of the world’s pokies and NSW had 10 per cent, and Newcastle was “in some ways the belly of the beast”, with one poker machine for every 47 adults.
“That should shock you,” he said, “because what we now know is that [pokie] machines are built for addiction’.
“When [gamblers] anticipate playing the dopamine that is released hits the pleasure centre of the brain with the same impact as ice or cocaine.”
The Alliance supports Productivity Commission recommendations including slowing down the spin-rate of machines and $1 bets.
Mr Costello slammed a memorandum of understanding between clubs and the NSW government which he said did not require developers who were lodging an application for a club to state how many pokie machines would be installed, nor cite any potential damage to communities.
“That is wrong and it’s immoral [and] the extraordinary thing of this deal, when you say ‘how can the government do this’, is politics has been run since the Rum Rebellion by gambling and alcohol … the community has no say,” he said.
Danny Murphy, managing director of Huntlee developer LWP Property, said government processes dealt with “social behaviour issues around [pub] applications”.
Community advocate Tony Brown called for the introduction of modest harm mitigation measures for the use of pokies, which he likened to vampires: “they prey on the most vulnerable in the community, sap the lives and souls from people”.
ClubsNSW state councillor Scott Williams said the problem gambling prevalence rate was 0.5per cent in the Hunter compared to 1per cent in NSW.
The “industry supported evidence-based, cost-effective measures” towards reform but there was no evidence to support it.
