NSW:Reforms won't help problem gamblers: clubs

AAP General News (Australia)
04-11-2011
NSW:Reforms won't help problem gamblers: clubs

SYDNEY, April 11 AAP - The federal government's proposed gambling reforms won't help
problem gamblers, Clubs Australia says.

"A licence to punt won't reduce problem gambling, how can it when you are providing
problem gamblers with a licence to continue gambling," president of Clubs Australia Peter
Newell said on Monday, at the launch of an advertising campaign against the reforms at
a bowling club in Sydney's inner west.

The cost of implementing the reforms, which would see see gamblers forced to carry
cards to set gambling limits, would be too much for many pubs and clubs, he said.

"The costs of this technology are prohibitively expensive - more than three billion
nationally," Mr Newell said.

Anti-pokies politician Andrew Wilkie says punters will still be able to have a casual
bet without registering, with "low intensity" machines limiting gambling losses to $50
an hour.

But Mr Newell said the reforms "treat everyday ordinary Australians like problem gamblers".

"It is quite simply un-Australian," he said.

He denied independent senator Nick Xenophon's claim that 40 per cent of gambling revenue
comes from problem gamblers, saying the figure was more like 16 per cent.

He refused to put a figure on the cost of the industry's upcoming advertising blitz
on the reforms, saying only that the industry will spend whatever it has to as it was
a matter of "life and death" for many pubs and clubs.

"This licence to punt is a multi-billion-dollar noose around the necks of clubs and
pubs," he said.

AAP ct/tr/sn

KEYWORD: POKIES CLUBS

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