Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It may be a service, as the member for Braddon says, but it might also make the customer stay at the machine a bit longer, helping to create or exacerbate a problem.

The Tasmanian Gaming Commission report of 2008 found, on page 6, that machine producers are known to invest heavily in R&D to make their machines more profitable for venue operators. Features are developed and refined to attract gamblers to the machines and keep them engaged with the machines. Vulnerable gamblers are captured by these specifically designed features. This report bells the cat, because the design of these machines is at the heart of the problems they create for the community. And, make no mistake, they create a great deal of harm to problem gamblers: loss of income, debt, family breakdown, low productivity at work, theft, bankruptcy, suicide—all results of these machines. The Statewide Gambling Therapy Service in my electorate has collected statistics on the people they treat. Numbers seeking treatment have increased from 23 to 134 per year over the past three years. Thirty-six people who were treated last year were spending over $1,500 a week on their addiction prior to their treatment, and the majority of clients were spending more than $500 a week. The median figure for the losses of these gamblers was $30,000 before they sought treatment. Behind all of those figures are personal stories of addiction, loss, shame and deep regret, and all of those people have taken the personal responsibility of getting treatment.

Meanwhile, I think parliaments across Australia—governments and oppositions alike—fail to take into account evidence that has been found in many reports that the design of gaming machines is directly related to problem gambling. I do not think we should sit on our hands. We should act on areas of design like reinforcement schedules, spin rates, the appearance of the near miss, multiple-line betting, reducing maximum bet levels, the presence of note acceptors, clear displays of losses as well as wins, visual and sound effects, the design of venues and even small things like the handbag hook. All these design features need to be up for examination to find a comprehensive set of protections for the community. Even the industry’s own research, the 2001 report by Blaszczynski, Sharpe and Walker, stated on page 11:

The present study found evidence to support the view that the reduction of maximum bet size from $10 to $1 on electronic gaming machines would be a potentially effective harm minimisation strategy for a small proportion of players.

I am informed that on some machines you can play $9 per spin by betting on multiple lines and that the average spin rate on these machines is three seconds, so you can lose $180 per minute, or $10,000 an hour. So this recommendation made by the industry’s own commissioned research is very important, but unfortunately it has been ignored, as so many reports around the country have been ignored. There have been reports from South Australia, and in Tasmania there has been a lot of research throughout the industry over the years. Every day we ignore these reports and the effects of machine design, people are placed at financial and emotional risk.

One cannot predict the future. Politicians rarely make guarantees. The one thing I can guarantee to this House is that somewhere in my electorate tonight someone will leave a gaming venue feeling ashamed, desperate and remorseful, all because of addiction to these machines. They have a responsibility to get help, but we have a responsibility to get the industry’s hooks out of their handbags.

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