The Federal Government has launched an investigation into problem gambling and the Victorian Government is trying to ban automatic teller machines (ATM's) from poker machine venues.

The reason for this is Australia's poker machines are some of the hungriest in the world according to popular opinion. The pokies in Australia can easily eat up the average weekly paycheck in an hour, this is a situation that gambling experts have branded as "evil".

Dr Charles Livingstone a researcher from the Monash University has warned that some of the popular gaming machines can consume more then $1,200 in a hour.

"When you can press the button once every 2.14 seconds, basically it's remarkably easy to lose hundreds or thousands of dollars an hour on a poker machine," he said. "I'm not suggesting that everyone who plays the pokies does lose $1200 an hour, but it is certainly easy to do."

The Federal Government investigation of problem gambling that is gong to be conducted by the Family and Community Services Minister, Jenny Macklin. She is going to be looking into reducing poker machine spin rates and also wants to introduce smart card technology to impose pre set spending limits on players.



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- 2008-03-14