Liberal challenge to Government: drastically cut bet limits on poker machines

· Current $10 bet limits allow losses of $1200 an hour

· A family’s entire weekly budget can be gone in under an hour

· Liberal move to slash bet limits to $1 will dramatically slow down the rate of loss

The Liberals will move an amendment to the Gaming Control Bill in State Parliament to dramatically slash bet limits to slow down the rate of loss and mitigate the harm for problem gamblers.
The Bill today reduces the $10 bet limit to $5, but even then it is still possible to lose $600 an hour and that is too much.
The Liberals’ amendment for a $1 bet limit will reduce that further, bringing the maximum total spend in an hour down to $120.
While bet limits are set by Ministerial Direction, the Liberals will move to ensure the Minister has no power to make a direction to the Commission that sets a bet limit higher than $1 per spin for a gaming machine in any gaming venue.
The move is based on strong evidence that limiting bets to $1 reduces the harm from high intensity gambling without unduly affecting recreational gamblers who typically bet at quite low levels.
The recent Productivity Commission report stated that the effectiveness of measures to address the harms associated with gambling machines has been questionable, including lowering the maximum bet limit from $10 to $5.
The report found that $5 is still too high to be effective in constraining the spending of problem gamblers, given the speed and intensity of play that a modern gambling machine allows, and recommended the maximum bet limit bet set at $1 because it was “the only modification likely to be effective as a harm minimisation strategy”.
According to the Tasmanian Gaming Commission, any revenue reductions from the bet limit “must be seen as perhaps the primary indicator that any further interventions have worked”.
The Tasmanian Liberals will support all other measures contained in the Gaming Control Bill and will also raise the critical issue of opening hours of poker machine venues in Tasmania, which are said to be the most lax of any State.
Brett Whiteley MP Shadow Minister for Health and Human Services