FOR problem gamblers, the coronavirus-forced closure of pubs and clubs on March 23 provided a unique opportunity to get on top of an addiction that might have otherwise proven impervious to intervention.
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Last month, we reported on NSW government statistics showing that Hunter Region poker machines make a collective profit of more than $1.1 million a day.
That's profit.
Legally, these machines must pay out 87 per cent or more of their turnover, so this $1.1 million a day is what pubs and clubs earn when players, as a whole, put through at least nine times that amount, over time.
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As the wife of one problem gambler tells our reporter Helen Gregory today, the decision to stop gambling has to come from the gambler.
But that is a very difficult step for a person in the grip of an addiction to take, especially with an inviting club or pub nearby.
Now, however, every poker machine in the state has been off-limits for seven weeks.
TAB outlets have been shut as well.
It is difficult to know how much is gambled online at the best of times, and some poker machine players will have probably transferred their attentions to phone sports betting.
But as today's report shows, the pub and club closures have provided enough of a circuit breaker for at least one problem gambler to get a grip on the situation.
Hopefully, there are many more in our region - and across the country - who have also taken advantage of this forced break in play.
Divided by the number of adults in the region, the Hunter's poker machine losses amount to little more than $1100 a year, but not everyone plays the pokies, and there is ample evidence to show the losses are disproportionately borne by those who can least afford to wear the cost.
As we noted above, interventions based on the gambler stopping voluntarily do not always work.
For the families and friends of troubled poker machine players, the pub and club closures can be viewed as an otherwise impossible intervention that works on the source of the problem, not the victim.
Clubs, especially, will say that poker machine profits go back into the community, but this is money gained at a terrible cost from those who gamble it away despite their best intentions.
The machines will switch on again sooner or later.
In the meantime, the locked doors give the pokie player an even break, for once.
The chance of a lifetime to break a habit of a lifetime.
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Ian Kirkwood
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
