Tasmania’s peak hospitality body has blasted a Labor party election pledge to remove poker machines from pubs and clubs, claiming the move will cost hundreds of jobs.

The state’s opposition has vowed to phase out more than 2,300 pokies from venues by 2023 if it wins power at the state election in March.

Tasmania would become the second state in Australia without machines in pubs and clubs, along with Western Australia.

But Tasmanian Hospitality Association general manager Steve Old said the jobs of hundreds of publicans and other workers such as cleaners would be put at risk.

“The down flow is going to be massive, this policy is bigger than just hospitality,” he said on Friday. “We’re happy to sit down and discuss harm minimisation but what they’ve done is gone to one extreme and destroyed an industry.”

Old said Tasmania already had strict harm minimisation practises and one of the lowest problem gambling rates in the country.

His concerns were echoed by Greg Farrell, the chief executive of Federal Group, which holds exclusive rights to the machines in the state. Farrell was joined by more than 100 company staff outside Wrest Point Casino, and said the future of many of the company’s 2,000-plus workers was at risk.

Federal Group, which opened Australia’s first casino in Hobart in 1973, has long held exclusive rights to operate casinos, pokies and Keno throughout Tasmania. Poker machines would still be allowed in casinos under Labor’s plan.

Farrell said the company would review its investment in Tasmania and seek legal advice over Labor’s policy.

He said it was an “attack” on the industry and “an example of a nanny-state initiative”.

As part of the policy announcement on Wednesday, opposition leader Rebecca White said a $55m package would be provided to help venues transition away from pokies over five years. She said Tasmanians lost $110m on poker machines last year.

The Liberal government’s policy is to cut the number of pokies in the state by 150 by 2023.

Premier Will Hodgman has said Labor’s plan would be “hurtful” to Tasmanians.

Johnson Koay, who’s worked with Federal Group for more than 30 years, said staff feared for their livelihoods.

“The mere announcement caused doubt about what we’re going to do in the future,” he said.