Gamblers empty more from pockets

Tasmania's love affair with gambling has continued, with punters losing more than $213 million on poker machines last financial year.

The Opposition parties say the State Government must do more to help problem gamblers.

The annual report from the Tasmanian Gaming Commission shows gamblers spent $280 million, mostly on gaming machines, during the last financial year.

That is an increase of $15 million on the previous 12 months.

More than $4.5 million went to the government for community programs, including for problem gamblers.

The Opposition Leader Will Hodgman, says that is not enough.

"They're not returning enough of that dividend to assist people who've developed a gambling addiction," Mr Hodgman said.

The Greens Kim Booth says there is only one way to help.

"Removing the machines, particularly out of pubs and clubs," Mr Booth said.

The Racing Minister, Michael Aird, says that is nonsense.

"Gaming machines are a legal activity."

Mr Aird says the Government is concerned about problem gamblers and will act on a report into the issues once the commission and stakeholders have had input.

Poor are still problem gamblers: report

Melbourne's poor are continuing to battle problem gambling, a new report has revealed.

A Monash University study has found problem gamblers accounted for almost half of the record $2.6 billion lost on Victorian poker machines in the last financial year.

Details of the study, reported in The Age, show 1.6 per cent of Victorians, or 63,700 people, are problem gamblers.

It says people living in disadvantaged areas experience both greater losses per adult and higher rates of problem gambling in a systematic way.

"It is clear that much further action is required by government to address the entrenchment of disadvantage indicated by the data," the study says.

The City of Dandenong, in Melbourne's outer south-east, has the highest percentage of problem gamblers who lost $62 million on pokies last financial year. The municipalities of Maribyrnong and Brimbank, both in Melbourne's north-west, were in second and third place.

The state government has previously said it was winning the battle against gambling addiction, with Premier John Brumby saying problem gambling was falling in Victoria.

Financial pressures causing couples to split

Relationships Australia says rising living costs and housing stress are causing couples and families to break up.

Financial counsellor Fiona Hawkins says more couples are struggling with relationships because of increased financial pressures.

And she says counsellors are also seeing an increase in problem gambling.

"Frankly when there's no other way to make the budget balance, some people will head to the pokie room and that can put enormous strain on a family's stability," she said.

Elderly gambler avoids jail over welfare fraud

An elderly woman who pretended for seven years that her mother was still alive to collect her pension has avoided jail.

A court heard that Eleonora Spiniello, 72, from Fulham Gardens in Adelaide became addicted to poker machine gambling after her mother died in 1999.

She stole nearly $82,000 by failing to tell welfare authorities of the death.

Spiniello was jailed for three years but had the sentence suspended.

District Court Judge Gordon Barrett took account of the woman's age, medical history, her early guilty plea, efforts to pay back the money by selling her house and her having to care for a violent father.

Negligent parents face 3 years jail

Queensland parents who abandon their children to go gambling, drinking or shopping, face up to three years in jail under a new law set to go before Parliament.

The controversial law, which will apply to the parents of children under 12 years of age, is expected to be up for debate later this month.

The bill has been drafted in response to reports of children being abandoned in car parks and hotel rooms, or left at home and it will allow police to charge parents who have left their children unattended for an unreasonable amount of time.

Under the current law, police can only issue a warning to parents who abandon their children and cannot charge them unless the child has been hurt.

"I'm taking to Cabinet on Monday, 14 [April]... [about] proposals for a new law to clamp down on irresponsible parents who abandon their children for limited periods, and I'm proposing that a maximum penalty of three years should apply," Attorney General Kerry Shine said.

As every case of neglect is different, police will be given discretion to judge what is unreasonable.

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