The Australia Institute Tasmania has released information, according to which the number of Tasmanian residents who are currently employed in the local gambling industry amounts to less than 50% of the figure that has previously announced by the industry. The Australia Institute Tasmania released a special report, which questions the estimates the possible impact that Electronic Gaming Machines could have on employment and revenue in Tasmania.
According to the Institute, the previously made estimates on the Poker machines phasing out on employment are contradictory to the data that has recently been announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
According to an ACIL Allen Consulting report dated 2015, more than 4,050 Tasmanians worked in the gambling industry. The number of people employed in keno and poker machine gambling amounted to more than 3,100. Now, the director of the Australia Institute Tasmania Leanne Minshull explained that as a recent ABS research has showed, the number of local residents employed in the industry was substantially lower.
As revealed by Ms. Minshull, the number of Tasmanian residents employed in the gaming industry is estimated to around 1,500 people by the most recent research of the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This was exactly why the Australia Institute Tasmania said that the new data was inconsistent with the one that had been previously reported.
The Australia Institute Tasmania’s Director Leanne Minshull explained that the Institute had wanted to look more closely on the economic modelling used for predicting what the impact of gambling would be on the Gross Domestic Product and employment, especially considering the fact that the Tasmanian Joint Select Committee on Future Gaming Markets was considering the future of poker machines.
Ms. Minshull explained that applying gambling industry data gathered in a nationwide research by the ABS suggested that less than one percent of the local workforce was employed in the gambling industry, with Poker machines being responsible for only part of gambling employment in the region.
As shared by Ms. Minshull, there turned out to be a major difference between the number of people employed in the gambling industry according to the ABS and the recent report commissioned by the local Government. What is more, the Institute director further explained that the figures that had been used for evaluation of the gambling impact on the state’s Gross Domestic Product might have been overestimated, as the possible case scenarios were only limited to considering the local gambling industry as a whole rather than the Poker machines phase out.
According to information released by the Institute, the research concluded that the region needs more transparent and robust modelling in order for the impact of gambling and more specifically the one from a phase out of Poker machines to be accurately evaluated.
- Author
Daniel Williams
