A new community group is gathering real life stories to reveal the impact of gambling on people as pokies figures show a drop of gaming losses in the north in the past financial year.
Punters lost $93.2 million in the past financial year, a drop of $9 million from the $102.2 million the previous financial year, according to the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation.
The head of the Whittlesea Interagency Taskforce on Gambling, Jemal Ahmet, said the drop was likely to be temporary and may have been caused by the withdrawal of ATMs in gaming venues, which were replaced by EFTPOS facilities.
He said when smoking bans were introduced, gaming revenue dropped, but then bounced back and increased beyond previous highs.
The new gambling taskforce formed when charities and community agencies split from the Whittlesea Responsible Gambling Forum last year because it included venue representatives, and the agencies cited a “lack of goodwill” from gaming participants.
Mr Ahmet also said the group of five agencies was gathering “real life stories” from gamblers and their friends and families to put a human face to the impact of gambling in a campaign to be launched later this year.
“Real lives and people are impacted upon and people who are harmed have a long road to recovery,” he said.
“These gambling losses are a major contributor to poverty, family violence and homelessness in our community.
“The problem in Whittlesea isn’t just that we have too many machines, it’s also that they are some of the highest revenue machines in Victoria; [they are] 30 per cent more profitable than the state average.”
