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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-24 Daily Xml
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STATUTES AMENDMENT (GAMING MACHINE LIMITATIONS) BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (10:44): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Casino Act 1997 and the Gaming Machines Act 1992. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (10:45): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The problem with gambling machines (as I prefer to call them) is that they are deliberately designed to be addictive. I am not against all forms of gambling but, in relation to poker machines, I think there is something particularly insidious because of the amount of time and ingenuity that has gone into programming machines to encourage addictive behaviour. Over the last year I have been studying some of these features which promote addiction, and it is possible to legislate to remove those features which, in a sense, trick people into coming back and spending more and more.

I reject the notion that it is purely a leisure activity, as promoted by the Hotels Association. If that were the case, everyone would be happy for them to be 1¢ machines and to limit the bets to a very low amount. The fact is that it is a money-making business and, because it preys on people's addiction, it is a particularly odious business.

I realise the state's reliance on poker machine revenue, but there is a cost that goes with that. It is a hidden cost because it comes up in our hospitals, our justice system, with employers who lose embezzled funds, with people whose houses are broken into to get goods to sell in order to fund an addiction. So, in a great variety of areas, there is extra wasteful expenditure and heartache which counterbalances the enormous revenue received by the Treasury from poker machines.

The legislation that I am proposing does a couple of things. The most important thing is that the national guidelines must be adhered to. At the moment, there are national guidelines and the hotels associations around the country have a say in what those guidelines should be. Various stakeholders are consulted to come up with a list of what are, effectively, recommendations about the do's and don'ts of gambling machines.

However, adherence to that code is entirely voluntary. Even our gambling commissioner in South Australia can approve machines which do not comply with these agreed national standards. We know that is the case. When I took out a freedom of information application (I think it was concerning the years 2007 and 2008), some eight out of over 130 machines simply did not comply with the guidelines. That is not good enough. One thing that this legislation does is to make the national guidelines mandatory.

In terms of the structure of the bill, members will soon see that there are amendments to the Casino Act and the Gaming Machines Act. That is because there are duplicate provisions in our current law pertaining to the casino and to hotels and clubs, on the other hand. So, it is necessary to have exactly the same terms apply to hotels and clubs, on the one hand, and the casino on the other hand.

I now turn to the clauses of the legislation that I have drafted, because it is in going through the precise changes to the law that one can better understand what I am aiming for here. First of all, if one looks at clause 5 of the bill, it is clear from the first subclause that the Gaming Machine National Standards become mandatory—again, cannot be approved if those standards are not met. I note that in October this year there will be a revised version 10 of those standards and so the bill refers to that standard.

In terms of the transition period, I refer to clause 2 which provides that the act will come into operation on 1 January 2010. That applies to new games, effectively. However, it is important to note subclause (5) of clause 5 which provides:

All approvals of gaming machine games granted before 1 January 2010 will expire on 1 January 2014.

In other words, there is a four year period of grace in respect of existing machines, and there are many thousands of those throughout South Australia. By 2014, if I had my way, every machine in South Australia would have to comply with these new standards.

I now turn to the actual tricks of the machines which I say should be prohibited characteristics. There are many prohibitions already in the Game Approval Guidelines 2003. There are game approval guidelines because both section 40 of the Gaming Machines Act and a corresponding section in the Casino Act provide that the commissioner may approve particular gaming machines or particular games and that the commissioner must have regard to any guidelines which are published.

There are guidelines which are published and they do suggest that a number of things cannot be included in the games. For example, there is a suggestion that the spin time should be not less than 3.5 seconds—3.5 seconds per turn, if you like. Of the machines which were approved in the previous financial year there were, in fact, a number which did not meet that minimum standard—but they do not have to; that is the point. Our gambling commissioner looks at the machine, looks at the software effectively, and says, 'Well, this is the subject of an adverse recommendation in the guidelines but I don't have to follow that; I just have to have regard to it.' So, machines that do not follow the rules can be approved.

My legislation seeks to add to those things that are prohibited. I have suggested under the heading 'Near miss' that the game cannot have other than an equal number of each type of symbol on each reel. The language, using the definition section of this legislation, picks up the old mechanical machine, and one can best understand the new electronic machines by reference to the old mechanical machines—the old 'one-armed bandits' as they were called—which had several reels with different symbols painted around them. They would be spun by mechanical means so that, apparently at random, different symbols would appear through the window facing the player. I have used that symbolism to describe a spin and a reel and it needs to be understood in the context.

What I am suggesting is that there needs to be an equal number of symbols on each reel. One of the tricks of the machines at the moment is that you can have plenty of kings, for example, on four of five reels, but only one king out of a hundred symbols on the fifth reel. The person spins, knowing that if they get five kings they get a massive jackpot. They keep getting three or four kings and they keep thinking, 'I am so close to getting that jackpot; I'll keep playing,' but in fact it is very hard to get that final king to come up. It is extremely unlikely.

Secondly, I am requiring certain game information to be provided. The odds of winning the game, including the five top and bottom winning combinations, and the average winnings paid out to players over the game over a particular period of time or number of plays must be displayed on the screen. The maximum and minimum player spend rate for the game needs to be displayed on the screen. A clock with the correct time must be displayed on the screen at all times.

Another feature that I am seeking to impose on these machines is a feature that interrupts play at regular intervals not exceeding 30 minutes of continuous play for at least 20 seconds on each occasion. During that break, there will be a display on the screen suggesting the duration of the player's session, the amount in dollars and cents that the player has lost during that session and indeed the net wins or losses during that session.

There will also be a question for the player to answer: 'Do you wish to continue or not?' I hope that that information and that opportunity will give players, especially those with an addiction, some cause to pause and reconsider their continuing pursuit of an illusory fortune.

The next feature to which I refer is a limit which would not allow more than three bets per reel spin. At the moment, multiple bets are allowed in various combinations, and sometimes there are 25 symbols that actually come up on a screen, and one can bet on various horizontal, vertical and even diagonal rows, so I am seeking to limit the number of bets per spin.

I am also limiting the feature of free spins. At the moment, there are allowed a certain number of what are called 'free spins'. A so-called free spin means that there is a bonus of extra plays to the player, but of course this is illusory because the payout is legislated to be 87.5 per cent. Therefore, the fact that there might be so-called free spins means that, in respect of the other spins, there will actually be less of a payout because the spin that is taking place that one does not have to pay for must be taken into account in the total number of spins available from the machine. Over a period of time, that free spin, for which one does not have to pay, means that other payouts are going to be less to take account of that apparent bargain. I am seeking to ban that free spin feature altogether.

Those, essentially, are the features that I have sought to impose upon these gambling machines. I have also suggested that they should not be capable of accepting a bet of more than 20¢ for each line for each play of a game. In other words, as I see it, there would be a maximum 60¢ spend per turn to limit people's losses. At the moment, you can lose thousands of dollars an hour through playing a dollar machine and multiple lines, and I think that is one of the reasons that problem gamblers have got into such difficulty.

Before I close my remarks, I must address the so-called 'small market argument' used by the industry and, I suspect, the government. They say that, because South Australia is a relatively small market for gaming machines in world terms, gaming machine manufacturers simply would not bother to manufacture and make these special changes for South Australia. I reject that. New Zealand actually has a number of these features already as precautions in their gaming machine regime and New Zealand is not much bigger than South Australia in terms of population and I suspect not hugely disproportionate in terms of the number of gambling machines out there.

It seems to me that if these changes go through there will still be a buck to be made by those who are able to snare people with these gambling machines. However, the play will be more honest, and if it is truly a recreational pursuit there is no reason why we should not have more honesty in respect of the gaming machine features.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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