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"Statewide services will also be provided to support problem gamblers from non-English speaking backgrounds, to help problem gamblers facing legal difficulties, and to ensure that NSW's gambling counsellors have access to the latest professional training," Mr Souris said in a statement. The money will also provide increased after hours counselling, financial counselling, community education programs and referrals for problem gamblers with complex mental health issues.

FOUR out of every five problem gamblers in South Australia are addicted to pokies - despite the growth of online and sports betting. A profile of problem gamblers treated by the Flinders University School of Medicine shows less than 1 per cent said they had a problem gambling online but 83.9 per cent admitted to poker machine addiction. Flinders University Professor of Psychiatry Malcolm Battersby said experts did not know why a boom in sports betting and online gambling had not yet translated to an increase in problem gamblers.

Great story emphasises the problem of accountability

At a June 26 press event, Zynga announced its plan to help millions more make this grievous life mistake available as a video game with its new game Zynga Slots. It's a slots game where you don't actually have any chance of winning any money back. (But did the slot machine gambler ever have any hope of coming out ahead? Probably not.) The important thing is that Zynga Slots lets players experience pathetically dumping their money down a black hole just like at a real casino, with such premium downloadable content as "Cup of Coins" ($9.99), "Bucket of Coins" ($19.99), and "Vault of Coins" ($99.99). And if that just isn't enough coins, there's always the Platinum Purchase Program for $500 and up.

"The Coalition has released its policy "to help problem gamblers" under that very title. If the betting markets are any guide, the Coalition is poised to win government on September 7, so the likelihood is that this will be Australian government policy for some time to come. What does it promise?"

" New Jersey is deadly serious about making sure anyone who gambles online once Internet betting begins this week is physically within the state. And the technology designed to ensure it may freeze some bettors out of the action unless they move farther away from the state's borders."

"A Fairfield hotel that doubles as crisis accommodation for vulnerable people has won its battle to install 50 pokie machines. The win has horrified anti-gambling advocates, who believe the highly visible Victorian-style hotel will attract problem gamblers. See your ad here The Grandview Hotel proprietor Daniel El Fahkri appealed to VCAT after Darebin City Council rejected his application last year, arguing that the only way he could afford to significantly renovate the deteriorating 19th century building was to fund it with pokie machine expenditure."

"Borgata's vice-president of information technology John Forelli demonstrates in-room gaming at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, N.J., Monday, Feb. 11, 2013. The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City said it's the first casino in the United States to let guests gamble over hotel room TV sets. Gambling from a home computer is the next step in convenience gambling, after legislation legalizing online gambling was recently signed into law. (AP Photo/The Press of Atlantic City, Michael Ein)"

Tasmanian Council of Social Service chief executive Tony Reidy said Glenorchy had a higher proportion of poker machines per head of population compared with more affluent areas. "Poker machines in Tasmania are concentrated in lower-income communities," Mr Reidy said.

I'd lie awake, pokie music running through my head