Every year, Victorians lose billions of dollars on pokies. In the news it is just one big number, and then the story moves on. I couldn’t let it go. That money could pay for a year of public transport, help with rent, or cover the medical, dental, eye and mental health check-ups so many people put off because they can’t afford them. Behind that number are real households making real trade-offs. So I wanted to look closer and find out which communities the money is actually coming from.
“Pokies” is the Australian name for poker machines, also called slot machines or electronic gaming machines (EGMs). This report covers pokies in pubs and clubs, not the casino.
In 2025-26, Victorians lost $3.32 billion on pokies in pubs and clubs. The grey band marks the COVID venue closures, when losses fell to $1.57 billion. I expected them to drift back to the old level once venues reopened. Instead they went straight past it, and every year since 2022-23 has set a new record.
Source: Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (2025a, 2026a, 2026b).
The statewide total hides how uneven this is. On the map, darker councils lose more per adult. Mildura in the north-west stands out, along with several councils around Melbourne. Big rural shires take up most of the space on a state map, while some of the worst-hit councils are tiny shapes in Melbourne’s west, north and south-east. Use the Zoom to Melbourne button to see them properly.
Source: Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (2025a). Council boundaries: Australian Bureau of Statistics, via ozmaps (Sumner, 2026).
This chart is the one that answered my question. Each bubble is a council. The further left it sits, the more disadvantaged it is on the ABS SEIFA index, and bigger bubbles mean more machines per adult. Across Melbourne the relationship is strong (r = -0.76). Brimbank, one of the most disadvantaged councils in the state, lost $1,091 per adult. Boroondara lost $135, about eight times less.
The bubble sizes tell their own story too. The poorer councils tend to have more machines, so the supply is sitting right where the harm is. Use the buttons to compare metro and regional councils.
Source: Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (2025a), including SEIFA scores from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2023).
I wanted to check this wasn’t just one unusual year, so I split councils into five equal groups by disadvantage and tracked them back to 2011-12. The most disadvantaged group (red) lost more per adult than the least disadvantaged group (blue) in every single year. Even during the lockdowns, when everyone’s losses fell, the gap held. In 2024-25 the most disadvantaged group lost $855 per adult, about twice the $429 lost in the least disadvantaged group.
Source: Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (2025a, 2025b), including SEIFA scores from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2023).
Finally, I looked at where the money physically ends up. The 15 biggest venues each took more than $20 million in 2025-26. The top one, the Plough Hotel in Whittlesea, took about $82,000 a day from its 100 machines. Five of the 15 are in councils from the most disadvantaged fifth (highlighted), and 12 of the 15 are in Melbourne’s north, west and south-east. Switch the dropdown to loss per machine to see which venues work their machines hardest.
Source: Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (2025a, 2026a).
When I started, I thought pokies losses were just one big number. After looking closely, I found that the number has a pattern, and it isn’t fair.
Victorians are losing more money on pokies than ever before. And the people losing the most are not the ones who can afford it. They live in places like Brimbank, Dandenong, Mildura and Shepparton, which are some of the most disadvantaged communities in the state. An adult in Brimbank loses around $1,091 a year. An adult in Boroondara loses about $135.
This has been true every single year for over a decade. Even when venues closed during COVID, the gap didn’t go away.
Think about what that money could have been. A year of public transport. A month’s rent. The dental, eye and mental health check-ups many families keep putting off. A payment off a student loan or a personal loan. Savings for a child’s education. Or the car someone has been dreaming of and putting money away for. Instead it disappears into machines, often in the same suburbs that are already struggling the most.
With the state election on 28 November 2026, I hope the conversation about pokies changes. It shouldn’t just be about how many machines there are. It should be about where they are, and who is paying the price. Behind every dollar on these charts is a person, and a plan that didn’t happen.
About the data: Council-level figures cover 2011-12 to 2024-25, because older VGCCC sheets use a different layout. Venue figures are for 2025-26. Losses are recorded by the council where the venue is, not where the player lives, so some of a council’s losses come from visitors. Nine councils have no published pokies losses and are shown in grey.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2023). Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), Australia, 2021. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/socio-economic-indexes-areas-seifa-australia/latest-release
Few, S. (2008, February). Practical rules for using color in charts. Visual Business Intelligence Newsletter. Perceptual Edge. https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/rules_for_using_color.pdf
Parliament of Victoria. (2026). Victorian state election 2026. https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/election
R Core Team. (2026). R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Computer software]. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/
Sievert, C. (2020). Interactive web-based data visualization with R, plotly, and shiny. Chapman and Hall/CRC. https://plotly-r.com
Sumner, M. (2026). ozmaps: Australia maps [R package]. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ozmaps
Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission. (2025a). Annual density update (current) [Data set]. https://www.vgccc.vic.gov.au/for-community/gambling-victoria/gambling-data
Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission. (2025b). Annual density update (historical) [Data set]. https://www.vgccc.vic.gov.au/for-community/gambling-victoria/gambling-data
Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission. (2026a). EGM venue level expenditure (current) [Data set]. https://www.vgccc.vic.gov.au/for-community/gambling-victoria/gambling-data
Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission. (2026b). Monthly LGA release (historical): Yearly EGM data by LGA 2002-2024 [Data set]. https://www.vgccc.vic.gov.au/for-community/gambling-victoria/gambling-data
I have used grammerly for my context of story for grammer correction.