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Churches push for new controls on pokies
Message was posted: 12:51 Jul 17th, 2006

User: AussieAussieAussie Rank: Casino Gold: 2727CG Contributor rating: 5680 Status: Offline

Gambling news from http://www.abc.net.au/ A church leaders' group is urging the South Australian Government to speed up the introduction of new measures to combat problem gambling. The Heads of Churches Gambling Task Force says it is pleasantly surprised with new figures which show an increase of $2 million in spending on poker machines over the past year, compared with a $26 million increase the previous year. The figures still showed a $754 million loss for poker machine players, which is a record. The group's chairman Mark Henley says new measures are needed to help problem gamblers. "Now that we've, I suppose, capped the rate of growth, we're needing to see some reductions in levels of problem gambling," he said. "And that needs to occur through some more poker machines going and some other measures - fast tracking the smoking bans in gaming rooms, introduction of smart cards."