Latrobe Valley gamblers spent about $5 million dollar less on poker machines last financial year, a sign problem gambling reforms are making a positive impact, according to a local counselling service.
Latrobe Community Health Service acting executive director of community support Anne Briggs said the banning of automatic teller machines from pokie venues on 1 July 2012 had made a clear difference.
“Now people are having to actually interact with another person when they go to take money out, and it seems that effort has been a bit of a deterrent for poeple, who are less willing to go up to the counter for repeated trips to take money out,” Ms Briggs said.
According to 2012/13 financial year data published by Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, net electronic gaming machine expenditure across Latrobe City pokie venues was $43.76 million, down from $47.33 million in 2011/12.
As a percentage of takings, Morwell Hotel saw Latrobe’s biggest fall in EGM takings, down $1.4 million or more than 40 per cent, while Traralgon’s Royal Exchange Hotel took a $1.8 million EGM revenue hit, or 37 per cent.
Traralgon Bowls Club was also down almost half a million dollars over the 12 months.
Traralgon RSL president Maurice Harrison said reduced takings, equating to a decrease of $160,000 over the past year, meant the club would have to pull back on sponsorship and advertising,
“The decrease in revenue has got us worried to a certain extent – but we don’t believe the trend will continue,” Mr Harrison said, who put the reduced takings down to wider economic uncertainty.
“If anything, it will start to increase because people will always want to try and multiply their money, and it’s the people that can’t afford it, that live day to day, that will be the ones doing it.
“It’s definitely still a real problem, but if we don’t have pokie machines, we don’t have enough revenue to function.”
Four venues across Latrobe bucked the downward trend, with the Valley’s biggest EGM earner Grand Junction Hotel, seeing takings rise $350,000 to $5.4 million, and the Moe Racing Club seeing an extra $300,000 in EGM revenue.
Ms Briggs said while pokies takings were down overall, problem gambling had recently begun to encompass different demographics, which gambling help services were working to gather data on.
“What we are actually seeing is a gradual increase in people using alternative forms of gambling, with the proliferation of online sports betting, we’re seeing a whole new demographic open up, particularly when a lot of it is aimed at our youth,” she said.
