00:00Kate Sisseldja has experienced the harm of poker machine addiction first hand.
00:08Feeding thousands into the machines, she felt all hope drain away.
00:13This is addiction by design.
00:15Nobody ever thinks that this will happen to them.
00:19Nobody ever thinks that they will be sitting there, hour after hour, pouring money into a machine.
00:26In New South Wales, pubs and clubs are meant to shut down their pokies between 4 and 10am.
00:32But over many years, more than 600 venues have been granted exemptions or variations,
00:37including Mounties and Bankstown Sports,
00:40which make some of the highest profits per machine anywhere in the state.
00:44Cutting back on the opening hours is an absolute minimum.
00:51It's been more than a year since an independent panel recommended scrapping the exemptions.
00:56Today, the government's followed through.
00:58But it's giving venues until the end of March to adjust.
01:02You've got to understand, these are businesses,
01:05and you can't just jump in and just cut them off at the throat if you would like.
01:11The government will also let venues apply for new temporary exemptions
01:15if, for example, they're in a tourist zone or if they're experiencing financial hardship.
01:20Frankly, if a club's business model relies on being open at 6am, it shouldn't be open.
01:27The default six-hour shutdown won't apply to the star.
01:31It's in a special category and can remain open 24-7.
01:35Wesley Mission estimates gamblers are losing a million dollars an hour on the state's pokies.
01:41While these changes will reduce the window for potential losses,
01:45the government's reluctant to close it any further.
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