Australian law reform to address pathological gambling

In order to crack down on pathological gambling, the Australian government has been working on a bill to reform its casino-related legislation, as we reported in this article.
The bill, which became law at the end of last year, has been strongly criticised.
It requires slot machine and video poker manufacturers to install on their machines, by the end of 2014, a technology that will enable players to set the maximum sum that they will spend, before starting a gaming session.
According to the associations that fight against gambling addiction, this reform might turn out to be completely ineffective.
There are at least 200,000 machines in the country, which are used at least once a week by 600,000 Australian people, out of a population of 23 million.
In this category of players, just 15% account for 40% of all the money spent.
Instead of this inadequate law, the associations are campaigning to introduce a maximum bet-limit of one dollar.
As a result, potential losses will not exceed 120 dollars per hour.
Keeping in mind that at the moment it is possible to lose 1,500 dollars in just an hour, the reform advocated by these organisations could have a much greater impact on the problem of gambling addiction.