• Poker machines are a cause of record gambling losses in New South Wales
• Local residents may be losing as much as AU$24m a day, with more than AU$2bn lost in the first 90 days of 2025
• Gambling hawks call for stricter measures on the sector and more consumer protection

Australians continue to exercise one of their favorite pastimes freely – playing poker machines, or slots, as the rest of the world calls them.

Yet, this comes at a certain cost, as losses for New South Wales residents have risen to AU$3,200 per person a year in Western Sydney alone.

Aussies keep losing big time on the pokies

The numbers are offered by Wesley Mission, a charity that tapped into government and officially available data to come up with the tally, and which further analyzed that in New South Wales alone, people were losing as much as AU$24m every day.

In the first 90 days of the year, said the charity, losses climbed to $2.17bn, pointing to the government’s failure to properly address the severity of the issue. The charity’s boss, Rev Stu Cameron, said that lawmakers had to act quicker if they were to address the toll that poker machines take on the population.

And, besides, the numbers cited by Wesley Mission only factor in the money that is actually lost but fail to acknowledge the knock-on impact these losses also have on society in the form of financial and mental toll.

Cameron has called it "morally indefensible" that lawmakers would still consult with the sector to pass legislative measures designed to protect consumers and attacked the gaming sector for lobbying in their favor while families were being "financially and emotionally" crushed.

Some measures have been rolled out, but more are needed

Wesley Mission has acknowledged some positive developments, such as the reforms of 2023 when the state reduced the cash input caps to AU$500, from previously AU$5,000, but criticized the delay over the introduction of cashless gaming options that should make it harder for players to overspend.

Cash gambling has been a talking point in the state since, at the very least, 2023, but attempts to enact this change have so far been bogged down in delays.

At the same time, the country as a whole has been toughening its consumer protection measures with the rollout of a national self-exclusion registry designed to keep vulnerable consumers away from gambling.

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