Venue owners want the Government to intervene on pokie regulation. Photo / Andrew Warne
Owners of venues with pokie machines want the Government to intervene and change a regulation they say is unworkable and potentially dangerous.
Under rules brought in by the previous Government, making two or more withdrawals from an ATM or Eftpos terminal in the same day is considered a “sign of harm” if the money withdrawn is going to be used for gambling.
Under harm minimisation measures, staff at the venue needs to have a conversation with the person after they withdraw money for a second time to “assist with identifying whether the player is a problem gambler”. They also need to log the incident.
Tony Crosbie, who owns several venues and is on the board of the Gaming Machine Association, said the regulations were difficult to enforce because they meant constant monitoring of the ATM. He said they could also be triggered even when someone made two small withdrawals.
Getting staff to intercede with customers even for relatively minor withdrawals did not lead to a helpful conversation about whether someone was a problem gambler, but could potentially set staff member up for a testy confrontation with a grumpy customer.
Crosbie said constantly checking in with patrons created unnecessary tension and could frustrate them, particularly if they were being asked if they had a gambling problem multiple times in one day by staff.
“There are times where you’ve got to be careful how your staff manage that because that could be more of a health and safety issue.
“Some of the words we get told are not that pleasant.”
Crosbie said he had seen a 30% increase in people bringing larger amounts of cash to venues to circumvent the restrictions. This created its own problems, caused by people carrying around large amounts of cash — and sometimes deciding to spend it all.
“It’s more of a risk because those amounts are bigger that they’re bringing in — they might go and get $300 or $400. If they’re on-site, you are monitored to a certain extent so they’re only taking out small amounts as they go.”
Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden said the Government was not currently looking to change the rules, with its focus directed at online gambling regulations.
“The changes to the Gambling Harm Minimisation Regulations were made by the previous Government and are based on indicators of gambling harm”.
“I am interested in how the regulations are working for businesses, including any unintended consequences, however, at this point in time my focus is to fulfil the coalition commitment to regulate online gambling. Further work in the gambling space may come later,” she said.
Another challenge with the rules was knowing whether the patron was going to take the money withdrawn from the ATM back to the gaming room or whether they planned to take it somewhere else. If the former, venue staff were required to intervene, if the latter, they were not.
“With a lot of venues you’ve got TAB, restaurants, bottle shops — so [staff] have to define, are they going to go into the gaming room or another part of the venue? If they go into another part of the venue, not the gambling room, it’s not classed as a harm.”
Crosbie said the rest of the regulations, including a rule that venue managers need to make three “sweeps” of the gambling floor per hour were “fine” and “not a problem”.
“They’re not too bad, we’re achieving that.
“The regulations had to happen at some stage. We had to tighten up harm… but this particular part is just too onerous,” he said.
The Problem Gambling Foundation was approached for comment.
Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.