Alliance for Gambling Reform lobbying hard in a state where people lost $2.7bn to pokies in 2017-18 financial year

Local policy-makers call it The Corridor - a 10km diagonal swathe of some of the most disadvantaged areas of Melbourne that starts in Kings Park, goes through St Albans, through to Albion, and ends in Sunshine, where median incomes are about $230 per week below the Victorian average.

Councillors say they see kids going without breakfast, books and uniforms there.

It’s an area also defined by a high concentration of poker machines – more than 280 across seven venues, some which are open until 5am.

“We see the harm [poker machines] are doing, that’s why we’re saying we need change,” Virginia Tachos, who is on the local Brimbank council, tells Guardian Australia. “It’s destroying the fabric of our community.”

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The council is one of 18 in the city that is backing the Alliance for Gambling Reform’s November state election lobbying effort – essentially using ratepayers’ money to fund a political campaign calling for tighter regulation of poker machines. Asked to the justify the spend over “roads, rates and rubbish”, most simply point to the statistics.

On Friday, new data from the state’s gambling regulator showed Victorians lost $2.7bn to poker machines in the 2017-18 financial year. It was the largest increase in losses in a decade. The most money was lost in Brimbank, home of The Corridor, where punters gave up $139.5 million in 12 months, or about $380,000 a day.

Any leader who isn’t a puppet of the gaming industry would say this is health [risk] minimisation.

With Victoria passing tough new political donations laws on Thursday night, and Tasmanian Labor promising to scrap poker machines from all pubs and clubs in an eye-catching but ultimately failed election bid, advocates hope they can use the tight nature of the upcoming November poll to their advantage.

“Any leader who isn’t a puppet of the gaming industry would say this is health [risk] minimisation,” Tim Costello, the spokesman for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, said of his organisation’s demands.

Those include a reduction in maximum bets from $5 to $1 (the maximum is $10 in New South Wales), and regulating venues so they can only open for 14 hours a day, rather than the current maximum of 20.

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Public health experts say Victoria’s pokies laws, while still insufficient, are among the more effective nationally, and stronger than in NSW, where the gaming lobby is said to be most powerful. The Australian Hotels Association was contacted for comment.

Last year, the government introduced reforms such as limiting Eftpos cash withdrawals to $500 per card in 24 hours, creating a pre-commitment scheme that is mandatory for venues but voluntary for players, and capping the number of gaming machines at the current level until 2042. It also notes the amount spent on pokies per person in the state has dramatically dropped since last year.

For advocates, the massive increase in losses is evidencethe laws don’t go far enough. The cap on machines, they argue, simply gave the industry certainty that it would be in business for decades to come.

The Greens, too, are looking to flex their muscle. While the state election is expected to be fought on law and order, the pokies issue could prove pivotal after 24 November because of the Andrews government’s one-seat majority.

The Victorian Greens leader, Samantha Ratnam, said on Friday pokies reform would be a key demand in the case of hung parliament negotiations with Andrews and the Victorian Liberal leader, Matthew Guy.

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In a statement, Victoria’s gaming minister, Marlene Kairouz, said: “We are freezing pokies numbers across the state, limiting daily cash withdrawals in venues and capping the number of pokies in areas most vulnerable to gambling harm.”

Despite the intense lobbying, Charles Livingstone, a senior lecturer at Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, said neither of the major parties were showing “much appetite” for additional regulation.

“I think there’s more chance in Victoria than there is in New South Wales,” he said, though he was still skeptical of reform in the short-term due to the power of the gaming lobby.

On Friday, Costello directed his harshest criticism at Andrews, saying the figures showed Labor electorates were hardest hit by problem gambling.

“Most of the losses ... are coming from your people, Dan,” he said.

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Kelvin Thomson, a former federal Labor MP for the seat of Wills, where gaming losses are particularly high, said the major parties were reluctant to act because they knew the gaming lobby would “campaign against them if they don’t do as they wish”.

But Thomson, also a former spokesman for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, told Guardian Australia he was aware of people within the state Labor government that were keen to see change.

Asked about advocates’ demands on Tuesday, Guy said he would not make policy on the run.

Standing next to Costello on the steps of Victoria’s parliament on Friday, Anna Bardsley, a former gambling addict, said she had lost 10 years of her life to poker machines.

She had contemplated suicide at her lowest points. “I thought, ‘All that’s left for me is to be dead,’” Bardsley said.

She told media she had not gambled in 11 years, adding, “And I will never, ever give them another dollar.”

In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org