BRIMBANK Council will keep lobbying the state government for a reduction in gaming machine numbers after new figures revealed a record pokies loss of $145.6 million in the past financial year.
Data from the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation shows the city’s gamblers lost more than $400,000 a day in 2011-12.
The average loss for each Brimbank adult was more than $1000 a year, well above the state average of $613.
Last year’s total was $6 million more than the $139.3 million poured into pokies in 2010-11 and kept Brimbank as the highest-spending municipality in the state.
Brimbank’s acting general manager of community well-being, Neil Whiteside, said the council was concerned by the latest increase.
He said Brimbank was the second-most disadvantaged area in metropolitan Melbourne and money lost to its 970 gaming machines would otherwise be put back in the local community.
“[The] council supports a decrease in the numbers and density of electronic gaming machines in Brimbank.
“The electronic gambling policy outlines the council’s concerns in relation to the detrimental impact of problem gambling.”
As reported by the Weekly, the 2012-13 council budget includes higher rates for pokies venues in a move aimed at funding programs to help problem gamblers.
The rate is twice that levied on commercial and industrial properties.
Brimbank’s general manager of corporate services, Doris Cunningham, said the council would receive almost $750,000 from gaming venue rates this year.
She said extra revenue collected would go towards providing services to the community, including strengthening partnerships with welfare agencies, problem gambling services, support information and awareness campaigns.
According to recent figures from the Justice Department, 1.9 per cent of gamblers in Melbourne’s north-west were classed as problem gamblers, while 2.6 per cent were at moderate risk and 6.7 at low risk of becoming problem gamblers.
HealthWest project manager James Dunne said the trend of increasing pokies losses across the western suburbs meant problem gambling habits were on the rise.
“These people might not be defined as problem gamblers but are still likely to be experiencing many of the negative impacts of problem gambling, such as financial troubles, anxiety, stress and relationship problems,” he said.
Mr Dunne said pokies losses and an over-representation of pokies venues were being felt in poorer western suburbs that could least afford them.
“If you drill down further to a suburb like Braybrook, which is one of the most disadvantage suburbs in the state, a local pokies venue has 50 pokie machines and is seeing $11 million a year in losses from the local community – that’s approximately $220,000 per machine.
“Clearly with expenditure of pokies and a density that is high, people in the west are at greater risk of developing gambling problems.”
Mr Dunne said the alarming losses across the west should prompt regulatory reform to give councils more planning clout.
