Australia - all set to get rid of pokies from pubs and clubs!
Posted on February 11, 2008 - Filed Under NEWS, Gambling News
Hundreds of thousands of slot machines, commonly known as “pokies” in Australia, will be eased out from all across Australia, under a decade owning to the a radically new federal tax plan, which has been implemented!
The expulsion of pokies would mean that pokies now would be confined to racetracks and casinos, all across Australia. Steve Fielding, Family First Senator is going to introduce the bill of legislation in the parliament next week.
The bill is a smart move, and instead of banning away pokies or poker and slot machines, it introduces an individual tax on each poker and slot machine residing in a pub or a club, rendering the machine profit-less within a span on ten years!
The revenue generated from this “out with pokies” tax, will be transferred in to a trust fund, which will be used to help the community and other family groups or events through the 10 year tenure.
The move to introduce the tax legislation, by Steve Fielding, came after the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, slammed a new bill, which removes all ATM machines installed near these poker and slot machines, everywhere.
The estimated numbers of pokies installed in Victoria is 30,000; out of which 27,500 pokies or poker machines are installed in suburban pubs and clubs, where as 2500 of them currently reside at the Crown casino in Victoria.
The Tatts and Tabcorp own a good 80% majority of these poker machines. In a bold speech, Senator Fielding said that governments addicted to gambling find it extremely hard of surging poker machines taxes.
He also admitted that Australia has a gambling problem, and to tackle the problem, he wanted to start with putting the pokies where they belong, the casinos and the race tracks which are the dedicated venues for gambling, not pubs and clubs where families go for a night out or to have dinner together.
Victoria gambled and lost approximately 2.5 billion AUD last year in Poker Machines. The bold move of phasing these pokies could be thwarted, when the pokie machines owners and manufacturers Tatts-Tabcorp, in a ploy to stop the legislation, are lobbying for a 20-year extension on their license.
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