Bad news for Aussie Pokie players

[Nifty29]

Just read this snippet today from the Victorian budget forecas

From April, taxes on poker machines in bigger venues will be increased by 4.2 per cent, while the minimum player return ratio will be reduced from 87 per cent to 85 per cent.
Subject to negotiation, the casino will be required to pay $5500 for each machine in 2013/14 and $22,175 from 2014/15 onwards, budget documents show.:

Absolutely disgusting.

We don't realise how good we have it online

 

[jetset]

Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs!

 

[mrmark21]

Just read this snippet today from the Victorian budget forecas

Absolutely disgusting.

We don't realise how good we have it online

Yes the Government has well and truly killed pokies for Australians first they make it so we have a hard time gambling online through the most reputable vendors like Aristocrat, WMS, and IGT. Then they think that that they can make people pay taxes on winnings from 85% RTP pokies? Do they want people to stop gambling? I think pubs heavily rely on people that have gambling addictions. But even I noticed one of the local pokie dens near me only gets half the customers they used to ever since they reduced the payout on the machines. I know this because the old timers switched to a different venue that's closer to my house and they all say the same thing "those darn pokies were killing me" lol! I just don't see how the government will be able to keep making the same amount of revenue once these changes take affect.

Crown Casino (the only casino in Melbourne) sucks without a single WMS game in sight, tell me to pay taxes? I just won't go there. Now there's more to add. I got this off the Global Mail...

The House Wins: Gaming Reforms Ditched

The Abbott government is set to strip landmark gaming reforms meant to combat Australia’s world-leading gambling problem.

The government will move tomorrow to repeal landmark poker-machine reforms, acting with a speed that has left harm-minimisation campaigners including Reverend Tim Costello “shocked”.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews on Wednesday morning will put to a vote in the House of Representatives a bill repealing almost all of the harm-minimisation measures passed by the Gillard Labor government in November 2012.

“This is a straight capitulation to the power of the pokies lobby,” says Costello, chair of the Australian Churches’ Gambling Taskforce.
Among the measures that would be stripped away by the legislation are a requirement that by 2018 all new poker machines be capable of supporting a pre-commitment system, and another that ATM machines in gambling venues have a $250 daily withdrawal limit. So-called ‘pre-commitment’ technology allows gamblers to set how much money they plan to lose in a given session, locking out the player once the limit is reached.

The bill would also dismantle plans for a national gambling regulator, and remove the two levies on the gambling industry intended to fund it; scrap a requirement that warning messages flashed on poker machine screens be “dynamic”, to catch gamblers’ attention; and abolish the proposed trial of a mandatory pre-commitment scheme, which was to begin in the Australian Capital Territory this year.

ATM withdrawal limits in place in Victoria have seen the amount of money that problem gamblers lose on each sitting at the pokies fall by up to $90.
Both the imposition of ATM limits and fitting of machines with pre-commitment technology were recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its 2010 report into Australia’s gambling industry.

Among the Commission’s findings was that some 41 per cent of poker machine revenue in Australia is drawn from problem gamblers. Costello says the statistic represents a “human tragedy”, which he accuses the Abbott government of ignoring.

“You have to explain – when 70 per cent of the public want reform of pokies, and see the damage – how a government is so deaf,” he says. “The explanation is that they're captured by pokies’ donations.”

This of course was bound to happen under the Abbot Government - Still sucks!

 

[randomiam]

as if they wernt tight enough

this is shocking no wonder i moved on-line aint been right for about 10 years in my book used to go out with 10 bucks and it would last all night on a one center

 

[ChopleyIOM]

85% RTP? Jesus!

 

[dunover]

This means the pokies are becoming as bad as UK AWP's and no doubt will be played just as little them too. 22500 bucks for one licence?? I think the UK AWP's in pubs etc. are a few hundred pounds and the club AWP's with 250> jackpots are about 1200? Even if I got that wrong, they're still far cheaper. So the bright idea is in Australia - 1. Tax them to death. 2. Operators reduce RTP to cover the tax. 3. Players then find them tight and stop playing them. 4. Revenue goes down as a result. 5. So operators place less machines, leaving less government revenue.
Brilliant.

 

[MissRuthless]

Wow........ I really hate our government.
What a load of pure crap.

 

[Balthazar]

They didn't think this tax scheme all the way through:

1- It will still hurt the operators because gamblers won't put more money in the machines to compensate for the lower RTP. Since there won't be more money in, at the end of the day the tax increase will come out of the operators' pockets even with the lower RTP. Joe Smith with still lose the same $200 at 85% or 87% RTP.

2- Gamblers will get shorter play time and this might lead some of them to find other, less frustrating hobbies.

3- "Money out" with those machines is almost a non-factor since nearly all the winners put the "wins" back in, so that 2% RTP reduction won't save the operators any signifiant money.

So all in all, this tax hurts both the operators and the gamblers, as opposed to taxing only the operators without allowing them to decrease the RTP (which would hurt only the operators).

 

[mrmark21]

That's the problem with the government in Australia they never think things all the way through. They don't think about the long term, sure this will help out in the short term, but they are basically screwing themselves over for the long term. People will stop playing and they won't return once you get burnt to many times you get burnt for good. I can certainly see an increase in online gambling on the rise.

The next thing on our Prime Ministers list is fiddling with the public transport system as if it wasn't bad enough already. We already have to wait half an hour for a train otherwise it's delayed or cancelled.

On another note I think these pubs and pokie dens will need to find another form of entertainment to keep customers interested.

 

[Lucky Loser]

If they try the same trick in NSW I'll simply stop playing at pubs and clubs. Full stop. How shortsighted and dumb some politicians are.