Gambling is a source of substantial and wide-ranging harms to Canberrans, contributing to financial and mental distress, relationship breakdown, family and domestic violence, productivity loss, and increased risk of suicide. Electronic gaming machines (EGMs, also known as pokies) are the greatest source of gambling harm in the ACT, and are not regulated in a way to minimise this harm.
In our platform for the 2024 ACT election, ACTCOSS calls for stronger and more comprehensive policies to reduce the social, health and economic costs of gambling, including:
- implementation of a stronger public health approach to reducing gambling harm
- support for diversification of clubs’ revenue to drive a reduction in EGMs
- improved transparency about the harms caused by individual gambling venues
- implementation of Australia’s safest cashless gaming card system, linked to a central monitoring system and with robust consumer protections and harm reduction features
- mandating safer gambling venue hours
- funding a gambling harm advocacy peak.