Photo © 2004 AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie had made it clear he wanted a future government to tackle problem gambling in exchange for his support.

Hey presto! Prime Minister Julia Gillard produces the new ‘pre-commitment technology’. This comes in the form of smart cards that will eventually be installed on every poker machine in Australia under a re-elected Labor government.

It allows punters to nominate the maximum amount they can lose in a certain period, and then stop them from playing once that limit has been reached. The technology will be rolled out in 2012, with the national scheme up and running by 2014.

South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon has been lobbying for poker-machine reform for years, and says it is a historic day for tackling the gambling problem in Australia: "Poker machines will never, ever be able to cause the damage that they have in the past."

But whilst some are marking this as a watershed, others are undermining the nature of the deal.

Clubs Australia spokesman Anthony Ball accused Ms Gillard of placing more value on a political deal with Mr Wilkie than on protecting clubs. He claims "this announcement shows how political imperative has triumphed over good policy."

The reforms include implementing a $250 daily withdrawal limit on ATMs in most pokie venues. But Mr Ball criticises these methods as "untested" and says "there is no research to link ATM cash withdrawals to problem gambling."

Forty per cent of the money put into poker machines is contributed by problem gamblers with an estimated social cost of $4.7 billion a year.