NSW eyes voluntary gambling cards as minister blasts pokies venues as ‘bloated concrete bunkers’
Retiring planning minister Rob Stokes says poker machine gambling has turned clubs into brutal, unwelcoming junk spaces' and enslaved' people
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A significantly expanded voluntary trial of cashless gambling cards is firming as the most likely response to a scathing New South Wales Crime Commission report, which found only a mandatory scheme would be effective in combating money laundering in the state's pubs and clubs.
As pressure mounts on the government to tackle gambling reform in the lead-up to the March election, a senior government minister, Rob Stokes, upped the ante with a blistering speech on Wednesday night, saying the state's clubs have been distorted and disfigured" by their reliance on poker machine revenue. He called for a ban on gambling advertising that programs young people to a lifetime of addiction".
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