Tasmanian Labor party vows ban on pubs and clubs’ 2,300 pokies

Tasmania’s Labor party has finally decided just how many video poker machines it wants to see in the Australian state’s pubs and clubs: zero.

In October, Tasmania’s Greens party challenged Labor’s leadership to come clean on its official vision for the state’s pokies industry, amid rumors that Labor was waffling on its earlier pledge to push for a drastic reduction in the roughly 2,300 pokies currently hypnotizing pub- and club-goers.

The Federal Group holds a monopoly pokies license in Tasmania that expires in 2023. The ruling Liberal party has suggested it wants to open a tender for a new pokies license post-2023, while pushing for a modest decrease (150 units) of non-casino pokies.

On Wednesday, Labor unveiled its official pokies policy, which seeks a total ban on pokies outside casinos by 2023, based on the party’s view that the “harmful impacts of poker machine gambling are widespread.” Pokies are routinely cited as Australia’s top sources of both gaming revenue and problem gamblers.