The study revealed venues with poker machines have suffered no revenue loss. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
ACT Labor has promised to get even tougher on gambling if re-elected in October, after a new research paper showed the government’s efforts over the past eight years – or two terms of government – have done almost nothing to reduce gambling harm.
The study, released this week by the ANU’s Centre for Social Policy Research, looked at electronic gaming machine (EGM, or ‘pokies’) usage across the ACT between 2016 and 2024 and the effect of various government policies.
The findings are damning, with authors Francis Markham and Aino Suomi finding “there is no evidence” the government has reduced the amount of money lost to gambling, to the point venues that have reduced the number of EGMs on-site “have not lost revenue”.
After the 2016 election, when Labor and Greens formed a coalition government, the two struck a deal to reduce the number of EGM licenses across the ACT from the previous cap of 5000 to 4000 by July 2020.
Four years later, after the 2020 election, Labor and Greens agreed to further reduce this number to 3500 by 1 July 2025.
The paper notes that “efforts to reach this target appear to be on track”, even if it requires a mix of carrot and stick approaches.
At the start of the term, when there were 3868 EGMs across Canberra, the government offered financial incentives like paying venues $20,000 to become “pokie free”.
But by September 2024, there were still 3769 EGMs in use, and the government passed the Gaming Machine (Compulsory Surrender) Amendment Bill 2024 to allow the minister to “compel venues to surrender EGM authorisations should voluntary measures not prove adequate” to reach the July 2025 target.
Reducing the number of EGMs appears to have the general backing of the public.
A population survey conducted by the ANU in 2019 found 64 per cent of Canberrans agreed that EGMs “do more harm than good in the community”, with only 12 per cent disagreeing.
However, according to the ANU, “data suggests that gambling-related harm has not fallen in the ACT during the period in which the EGM reforms were introduced”.
“Although EGM participation declined significantly between 2009 and 2019, from 30.2 to 19 per cent, most of this reduction happened prior to 2014.”
In other words, there was a greater decline in EGM usage before the government did anything about it.
“Rather, within existing venues, remaining EGMs were simply used more intensively,” the paper reads.
“In summary, we can find no evidence – at the venue level or for the ACT as a whole – that the EGM surrender scheme did anything to change the amount of money lost on EGMs.
“If surrender schemes continue to operate in the same way, we expect that this pattern will be repeated.”
ACT Chief Minister has online gambling in his sights. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The paper concludes that the ACT’s number of EGMs would have to dip below 2000 before “any impact … is apparent”. This would bring the ACT’s current per-capita figure of 76 machines per 10,000 people closer to Victoria’s 42 per 10,000.
But even then, “it is unclear what sort of decline in EGM density might precipitate effects of a magnitude that are meaningful to policy”.
In response, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the study needed to be viewed in light of population growth and inflation since 2016 rather than “just using a strict assessment of dollars spent on poker machines”.
“But I do note the report’s authors made clear that further reductions in the number of poker machines would have a significant impact,” he said.
“And in fact, we’re proposing to go further than the authors of that paper have suggested.”
In June 2024, ACT Labor vowed to reduce the number of pokies in the ACT to 1000 by 2045. Mr Barr didn’t confirm whether this timeline would move forward, but he added that a new target would also include online gambling.
“We also recognise that whilst poker machines are a significant form of gambling in the community, they’re not the only form. And increasingly over time, we’re going to see a further transition away from poker machines towards other forms of online gambling.”
The ACT Greens have likewise promised a “strong platform of gambling harm reduction measures this election”.
ClubsACT was contacted for comment.
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