One of Australia’s leading gambling researchers has told a federal parliamentary inquiry that compulsory “pre-commitment” technology on poker machines will do little to assist problem gamblers.
Imre Salusinzky of The Australian National Affairs reports that the University of Sydney psychology professor Alex Blaszczynski told a hearing in Sydney yesterday a requirement for users to set daily limits on their gambling would be “ineffective” and easily manipulated.
The comments added weight to the concerns of licensed clubs representatives, who used the hearing to defend their upcoming $20 million campaign against the new pokie laws.
“Insufficient attention has been paid to who sets the initial limit,” Professor Blaszczynski said. “People with impaired control who have the option of increasing their limits will so do.”
He said the risk of legislating for the new technology was “spending a vast amount of money at the cost of other interventions that are more effective”.
A mandatory system in which poker machine players set gambling limits – and machines and venues are electronically linked – was negotiated by independent MP Andrew Wilkie as a condition of his support for the minority Gillard government.
Mr Wilkie is chairing the committee inquiring into problem gambling, which also includes independent anti-gambling senator Nick Xenophon.
Senator Xenophon tackled licensed clubs representatives on revelations in The Australian on Thursday about their campaign.
He later told The Weekend Australian: “ClubsNSW . . . should be working with the government to implement these sensible measures and the longer they delay, the less prepared they will be when the reforms are inevitably introduced.”
