Compulsive gamblers who have managed to escape their addiction believe that proposed new controls on gambling in the ACT would have blocked them from the terrible route to bankruptcy and misery which they actually took.
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"It is a real pivotal moment in getting the appropriate safeguards in place for a product which has done immense damage not only to Canberrans but nationally," Kate Seselja said.
She moved to Canberra to try to shake off the addiction she had developed as a teenager in Sydney - but then got sucked back in when she was in a mothers' group at a club and heard the poker machines in a nearby room.
That magnetic pull back to the pokies cost her half a million dollars, and nearly cost her her life.
She had started using the machines when she was 18 and soon found that she was pouring more and more money into them. She felt that getting out of the environment might be an escape.
I almost took my own life at the age of 32.
- Kate Seselja
"I hoped that moving to Canberra would leave all that behind," she said. "But a mothers' group was held in a club and I got retriggered."
She found that she could lose a lot of money very quickly with a $10 bet every three seconds. Before the final crisis hit, she had racked up half a million dollars of money into the slots. (She is, by the way, not a close relation to the politician.)
"I almost took my own life at the age of 32," she said - so she said welcomed a proposal to change the law.
The ACT government is contemplating introducing a system where people would need an identity card to use a machine. Far from those machines, gamblers would decide what their acceptable loss per day would be. That amount would be registered on the card.
All machines would be linked so gamblers couldn't switch machines or venues once they had bumped up against their maximum permitted loss.
The ACT is behind Tasmania on this, and behind every other jurisdiction in Australia.
Such a system in the ACT would be at least five years away. It could cost $70 million. The government would have to legislate for it. But the ACT's Gaming Minister Shane Rattenbury told The Canberra Times: "I think we should get on with this."
The rationale for having safeguards to protect people from themselves is that pokies are addictive (and designed to be addictive). They give the brain a buzz each time and are designed to give the impression that next time will be the big win.
"We have never had appropriate safeguards in place. The protections have always been around protecting the industry's profits and not protecting consumers," Ms Seselja said.
"Machines are built to entrap in addiction. That's the sole purpose. And these clubs have built wealth from members of the community."
"I think it was the adrenaline hit - waiting for that hit; waiting for that hit - and then you've got flashing lights and noises."
Her world came crashing down when the bank rang her partner about the large amounts leaving their account. There was a lot of pain - a lot of strain on her relationship. Giving up was like "going cold turkey" after drugs.
"I've been free of pokies gambling for seven years now," Professor Brown said.
She still goes into clubs - but takes her laptop and does University of Canberra work on it while others play the machines.
She welcomed the idea of putting pre-arranged limits on losses as "very positive".
"What would have stopped me was a pre-commitment (to a ceiling on losses) and not having access to money when I was gambling."
She said that when she was active, clubs had EFTPOS machines which would give cash if ATMs were turning gamblers down.
"I could say I wanted $500 and out would pop $20 notes," she said.
Problem gamblers are not unanimous in welcoming the idea of enforceable pre-agreed limits on their losses.
Marlene Kasurinen, who was a big gambler herself and whose husband killed himself after running up huge losses on the pokies at the Hellenic Club of Canberra, thinks that limiting pokies might push people into online gambling.
"They would lose more because they wouldn't even have to leave the lounge chair. They could do it on the bus," she said.
She doesn't think tougher regulations on pokies would have kept her husband from killing himself. "It wouldn't have stopped Ray and it wouldn't have stopped me because it was fun."
She also pointed out that the clubs would lose money if pokies were restricted, and that would damage their ability to provide entertainment.
On this, the clubs are staying silent. Requests for comment were declined.
What finally stopped Marlene Kasurinen was running out of money. She lives in a remote cabin without mobile phone coverage.
She still has a pokies app on her phone but doesn't use it. "Now I just play words and puzzles," she said.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
