Nick Xenophon in the fight to limit gambling

Independant federal senator Nikos Xenophon of South Australia is participating in the fight against problematic gambling, and is requesting from the federal government to supplant the States and take drastic measures to overcome this big social problem. Mr Xenophon believes that if the federal government takes appropriate measures and hits the areas that carry pokies with hard taxes, their owners will chose to get rid of them. Australia is one of the 10 countries worldwide in which gambling is extremely popular. On the top of the list of countries that are considered gambling countries are Monaco and Macao in which, for every 16 citizens there is a pokie machine. In Australia there is one pokie machine for every 110 residents, whilst the total number of machines that are in operation in the country amounts to 187,000.
The confirmation of the fact that Australia has over the past years become the Mecca for gambling comes just as the Rudd government is looking into the enactment of measures to limit gambling and the number of gambling addicts in the country.
One of the proposed measures is for the pokies players to each have a personal code which they would use to play on the machines and it would limit their hours of playing to two daily. Another measure that banking organizations are also in favour of, has to do with the amount of money which visitors to pubs and other areas with pokies will be able to withdraw from their account via ATM’s.
Currently, the withdrawal machines allow visitors to such places to withdraw up to $2,000 daily. According to the new measure the maximum amount which pub frequenters would be able to withdraw from the ATM’s would be $250. Another measure that is being looked into is limiting the length of time of the machines’ operation.
These and other proposals are to be handed to the government next month included in the report of the Committee for Productiveness, whilst the issue of gambling control is expected to come up at the next meeting of Mr Rudd with the State leaders in April.
(Source: neos kosmos)