Three months? Two? Less? Just how long is Victoria's pokie trial meant to go for?

Clear details around the Victorian government’s much-lauded carded play pokie trial still remain hazy, with one local council and advocacy groups retracting their endorsements last week. Now, clarity over just how many months the trial will go for is under the microscope.

🎰 No commitment without pre-commitment: Last week, both Monash Council and the Alliance for Gambling Reform (AGR) retracted their approval of the trial, citing unclear timelines and mandatory pre-commitment not being included as major concerns.

🗞️ This just in: Since then, documentation seen by the Eastern Melburnian – detailing the exact rollout of the project – raises further questions on perhaps the most basic fact of all: how long it will go on for?

The Eastern Melburnian’s understands the Department of Justice and Community Safety will spend September preparing venues and notifying gamblers of the upcoming changes.

It will do so by supporting all 43 venues involved with the trial across Monash, Greater Dandenong and Ballarat during September.

This work will aim to ensure the venues clearly communicate what the trial will involve with the patrons, how they can sign up to the new carded play system and how data will be collected.

This will all occur before any carded play trial begins.

❓ What is mandatory pre-commitment? Mandatory pre-commitment is a process that commits gamblers to set a limit on how much they are comfortable losing in a given time period.

For example, they may set a $50 daily limit and, if they lose the money or reach the time limit, they will be locked out until the following day or week begins. 

Gamblers can only change these limits once every 24 hours.

These electronic pre-commitment systems have been shown to prevent and reduce harm from pokie use.

📝 The “phased approach”: According to directions enforced by Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation Minister Enver Erdogan, the trial would not begin until Wednesday October 1. 

The Clayton Hotel is the only venue required to adhere to the directions.

From Thursday, October 2, four more Monash venues would join the list, followed by all Greater Dandenong and remaining Monash venues on Monday October 6 and Ballarat joining the fold on Tuesday October 7.

🗣️ Not good enough: Alliance for Gambling Reform’s Rebecca Paterson said the AGR believes this communication work should have been carried out prior to the launch of the trial and the current timeline is “considerably reduced” from the three-month timeline publicised.

“It’s hard to say you’re trialling something for a three-month period, but the technology that you’re trialling is only in place for two months,” she told the Eastern Melburnian.

🧱Government stands firm: The Victorian government remains steadfast the trial will go ahead, with a government spokesperson telling this masthead the government has “always said this would be a phased approach to ensure we get implementation right and bring industry along with us”.