'Poker machines are illegal': World-first legal action
World-first legal action will be launched next year alleging poker machines are illegal.
A new anti-gambling alliance says pokies are designed to be just as addictive as illicit drugs - and just as destructive.
With a staggering 20 per cent of the world's poker machines here in Australia, we're a nation of poker machine addicts.And through their slots we lose $11 billion each year.
"When you look at gambling figures in terms of addiction and spend, we are number one in the world by far," says anti-pokies campaigner Rev. Tim Costello.
Forty-five anti-pokies groups have now combined to form the alliance for gambling reform.
One of their top priorities: court action to prove poker machines are illegal."We'll look at common law negligence," said Maurice Blackburn lawyer Jacob Varghese.
"We'll also look at the Australian consumer law, which is a law designed to catch confidence tricksters. And that's what gaming machines are. They're elaborate confidence tricks."
Tricks that they say include near misses - where you fall one square short of a jackpot - and false wins - where you lose 80 percent of your bet, but the machine celebrates you winning 20 percent back."Those who play it regularly get addicted. Just like those who use heroin, cocaine ice, regularly get addicted," Rev. Costello said.
Alison Keogh's mother's pokies addiction tore her family apart.
Now working with the Gambling Impact Society, she says action is long overdue."There was no sense of normality, so things like family dinner, help with homework, family connection of an evening it just didn't happen."
The Gaming Technologies Association is the umbrella body for poker machines manufacturers.
Nobody would speak on camera to 7 News, but in a statement, it says poker machines create thousands of jobs, provide millions to the community, and are designed only to entertain.The alliance says it's still considering which parts of the industry to target in its legal action, and in what court.
Morning news break – October 22
