Australia‘s anti-gambling politicians are attempting to take a page out of Julian Assange’s playbook by launching a quest for dirt on the nation’s pokies industry.

Australians have the world’s highest per capita spending on gambling, and while sports betting’s popularity is increasing, it’s the ubiquitous video poker machine (pokies) industry that claims the overwhelming bulk of the nation’s gambling dollars.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon, who has built most of his political career on ‘tough on gambling’ posturing, has just launched a new ‘Pokie-Leaks’ campaign that asks gambling insiders to come forward with incriminating information on the multi-billion-dollar pokies industry.

Xenophon, along with Independent MP Andrew Wilkie and Greens Senator Larissa Walters, say they will use parliamentary privilege to protect the identity of any pokies whistleblowers who provide them with info on industry tactics – including illicit payments made to other politicians to impede anti-pokies legislation – as well as the nuts and bolts of poker machine design.