Pokies in the state of Victoria

Since pokies got introduced to the state of Victoria in the 1950´s a lot of money has been lost but also a lot of money has been won. Originally Pokies or video poker got introduced to clubs only in the year 1956 in NSW. Many years later, pokies are very popular in Australia. 21% of the world´s pokies can be found in Australia, while online 0.34% of the world population can be found in Australia.

In new data it is calculated that the Victorians have lost tent of billions of AU$ since the pokies were introduced in 1956. Now, in 2022, the politics are trying to reject the Pokies from the city centre of Melbourne. Last week they had to approve a new development of 50 pokies in the centre of Melbourne due to existing legislation. Although the council submitted a proposed change of plans almost three years ago. However, this change is still not implemented after all these years.

The proposal is not about rejecting new pokie applications. The proposal is about making sure that pokies are only allowed in appropriate locations. Acting Lord Mayor Reece about this subject: “The City of Melbourne think there should be more done to regulate whether and how gaming venues can operate across our municipality. That’s why we introduced a planning scheme amendment, C366, [to the] gaming policy way back in 2019 to better regulate where gaming venues can operate in our city.”

This week, data was published by the Victorian Gambling and Casino control about the money lost on videopoker. In the last 30 years $66 billion was lost by Victorians playing on these pokies. Councillor Leppert about new pokies in the city: “I don’t welcome this investment into the city, despite the number of employees anticipated to be working on the site. The harm to the community will be outweighing that purported benefit by a factor of many, many times over,” he said.