Lawyers says pokies are designed to be addictive and could be illegal, as they prepare legal action against operators and machine designers.

Maurice Blackburn firm said they were exploring whether the machines breached consumer laws because they were designed to deceive users and encourage addictive behavior.

“We think there’s a genuine argument that some of the behavior by the pokie designers is misleading and deceptive in that it makes people think things are happening that are not actually happening,” said lawyer Jacob Varghese. “One of those things is losses described as wins, in which the machine will act as if you’ve won but really you’ve net-lost. You might have won 30 cents on the dollar you played. You’ve still lost 70 cents but you still get all the stimulus and reaction from the machine as if you’ve won.

“The neuroscience shows that gives you a little bit of a hit, and that hit is not dissimilar to the hit you get when you take a drug,” Varghese added.