Australian MP Andrew Wilkie has gone public with fresh insider allegations of “predatory” behavior by one of the nation’s major video poker (pokies) machine operators.

On Tuesday, Wilkie (pictured) announced he’d obtained compromising info on retail giant Woolworths, which operates around 12,500 pokies through the hundreds of pubs and clubs run by its Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group (ALHG) subsidiary.

Wilkie spoke with two staffers from ALHG pubs who claim they were required to interact with big-spending gamblers in order to glean information on personal habits and interests. The info would be kept on file and shared with staff not just at that venue but across all ALHG properties.

One of these unidentified whistleblowers told Fairfax Media that the idea was to engage these VIP customers in familiar conversation to keep them “gambling for as long as possible.” The whistleblower described the data collection as “profiling” while the customers “think you are having a general chit-chat with them.”