Shonica Guy has never worked out how much money she lost gambling.
Instead, she counts the number of years of her life she says were taken from her due to her addiction to poker machines.
It was fourteen in total.
“They stole half my life that I can’t get back,” the 43-year-old from Adelaide told SBS News.
Shonica Guy is an advocate for gambling reform after losing 14 years of her life to a pokies addiction. Source: SBS
Next week the South Australian parliament is expected to vote on controversial new gambling reform measures which would see pokies in the state accept notes for the first time.
Current laws mean the machines in South Australia only accept coins. Machines in other states, including Victoria and New South Wales, already accept notes.
Ms Guy says she was shocked when she heard about the proposed change. She says as a former addict she believes she would have lost a lot more money, a lot quicker, if note acceptors had been around in Adelaide when she gambled.
“They are already dangerous enough as it is. We should be reigning them back, not allowing people to put notes in,” she said.
The reforms come amidst a suite of gambling-related measures introduced into the parliament by the Liberal state government last month.
South Australian Attorney-General Vickie Chapman declined to be interviewed, but told SBS News in a written statement the reforms introduced included stricter controls around barring orders (where those with a gambling problem can bar themselves from venues), and limits on EFTPOS withdrawals in gaming rooms.
“It’s important we strike a balance between supporting an economically viable gaming industry and meeting the broader community’s expectations around responsible and safe gaming,” Ms Chapman said.
“The South Australia hotel industry employs 26,250 people and we need to ensure the right legislative framework is in place to allow this industry to continue thriving,” she added.
The South Australian parliament is expected to vote on gambling reform measures next week. Source: AAP
The Labor opposition has released a set of amendments to the bill but says it will allow note acceptors to be introduced if the government agrees to their amendments, which include facial recognition technology being mandatory in large gaming venues to screen out gamblers who have self-excluded.
In a statement earlier this month, the shadow treasurer Stephen Mullighan said the party's proposed amendments to the bill would address community concerns that the laws would create more problem gambling.
But crossbenchers in the parliament’s upper house, including Frank Pangallo from the SA Best party, are furious about the reforms.
Fellow crossbenchers from the Greens have also signalled they will vote against the bill, meaning the government will be reliant on Labor’s support to pass the legislation through the state’s upper house where no party has a majority.
Mr Pangallo says the lobbying group the Australian Hotels Association has too much influence over both the Liberal and Labor sides of politics in South Australia.
“Of course they [Liberals and Labor] are singing from the same hymn-book, if you look at the donations they received from the Hotel Association, they are beholden to them,” he said.
The Australian Hotels Association was a major donor to both SA Labor and SA Liberals in the state election year of 2018.
It also ran its own ad campaign against then-SA Best Leader Nick Xenophon, an ardent anti-pokies crusader. Mr Xenophon at the time claimed the AHA had spent more than $1 million in ads against his party.
In a statement, general manager of the AHA’s South Australian branch Ian Horne said the government’s pokies reform bill was an “overdue progression in technology that is supported by a highly developed harm minimisation environment”.
“Under these reforms, South Australia will continue to have some of the most restrictive gaming machine laws in the country,” he said.
Those working on the frontline of gambling addiction say Australia's migrants are particularly vulnerable to gambling harm.
“When migrants come to a new country, there is a lot of isolation and lack of awareness about connections and services,” problem gambling support worker Chandana Rao told SBS News.
“Especially migrants who have come from countries like India where gambling is not prevalent, there is no awareness about the harm gambling can cause.
"It is considered as entertainment and it is considered very normalised activity when people come to Australia. They feel that it is part of Australian culture and try to assimilate,” she said.
In 2017, Ms Guy took Crown Resorts and Australia's largest poker machine manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure to the Federal Court alleging that a popular line of machines was unlawfully deceptive and designed to feed addiction. The case was thrown out by a judge in 2018 who said the claims could not be proven.
For Ms Guy, who now volunteers as a support worker helping others with gambling addictions, she says pokies reform should be about removing and limiting machines, not making it easier for people to lose money.
“The product is designed to addict, it does exactly what it's designed to do. You don’t see the government saying ‘use ice responsibly’ or ‘use cocaine responsibly’, but yes [it says] ‘gamble responsibly’,” she said.
