The Alliance for Gambling Reform has withdrawn its support for Victoria’s trial of carded poker machine play. The decision highlights growing frustration that the project, which was meant to reduce gambling harm, is sliding into delay and confusion rather than meaningful change.
Loopholes and missing deadlines
Alliance chief advocate Tim Costello says the trial has been poorly designed. He argues that the pre commitment feature, which was supposed to cap player losses, is not mandatory and will therefore attract little public uptake. That weakness, he believes, makes it almost impossible to collect reliable data on how effective limits could be in practice.
The Alliance initially supported the project in the hope it would lead to stronger safeguards. But since a cabinet reshuffle late last year, progress has slowed to a crawl. The new minister has not offered a clear start date, and there has been no confirmation of how the trial will be structured, assessed, or published. Costello recalls that earlier commitments under the previous minister at least provided public timelines. He now says that sense of urgency has completely faded.
The frustration is heightened by the fact that the reforms were once announced with much fanfare as landmark measures to tackle gambling harm. Victims who lost homes and savings to poker machines were used as the faces of reform, yet today there is little sign of those promises being honored.
Growing concern over stalled reforms
The sense of drift has also sparked political tension within the government. Some Labor members from communities hardest hit by gambling have openly pressed for faster action. They describe pokies reform as a moral obligation rather than a political choice.
For many, the core issue is not only the mechanics of the trial but the human cost of inaction. Every month of delay means more households burdened by losses, more families dealing with stress, and more community services stretched to cope. The withdrawal of support by the Alliance is being seen as a warning sign that patience is running out and that the government risks losing credibility if reforms continue to stall.
