According to the Victorian Gambling Commission, there are eight registered gambling venues hosting 329 pokies in Greater Shepparton.
Across Greater Shepparton’s venues players lost $3 million in January, and $2.9 million in February.
This is an increase of $455,867.22 in losses from those two months in 2020.
This comes after Greater Shepparton saw a combined $20 million saving in losses between 2019 and 2021 after players couldn’t access pokies from April to October in 2020.
In the 2017-2018 period Greater Shepparton players lost $33.3 million, and $34.1 million in the 2018-19 period.
But this dropped by around $10 million per year in 2019-20 and 2020-21, which saw losses of $24.9 million and $23.2 million receptively.
In February Greater Shepparton City Council voted to become a member of the Alliance for Gambling Reform for two years at a total cost of $30,000.
The alliance is a collaboration of organisations with a shared concern about the harmful aspects of gambling and its normalisation in Australian culture, and campaigns for reforms of the gambling industry that reduce the harm it causes.
Mayor Kim O’Keeffe said council wanted to understand how it could reduce the harm caused by gambling in the community.
“It is concerning,” she said of the latest data on losses.
“We want to see what our role could be in our community to reduce the impact.”
The alliance seeks changes to the licensing regulations for poker machines that see communities have a say on location, reduced operating hours for venues and a $1 maximum bet and maximum hourly loss rate of $120 an hour.
In comparison to other LGAs, annual expenditure on pokies in Greater Shepparton is $674 per head of adult population, which is higher than the state average of $532, the Melbourne metropolitan LGA average at $536, and the country LGA average of $483.
Since July 2021, $18,593,191.98 has been lost on pokies by gamblers in Greater Shepparton.
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