Australian Pub Pokies Online Regardless of whether you prefer 3 or 5 reel classic pokies games, graphic-rich, state-of-the-art video slots such as The Dark Knight, Avalon II or Immortal Romance, or you want to play for a life changing win in progressive jackpot games like Mega Moolah, we have a pokies site listed here that will suit you. Let's take a minute to pay tribute to pubs. Not just any pub, but the dying breed of pubs: the PWP or pub without pokies. There's nothing sadder than strolling into the pub and hearing that faint.

1. Australian Pub Pokies Pictures
2. Australian Pub Pokies Videos
3. Australian Pub Pokies Images
4. Australian Pub Pokies For Sale

Updated April 26, 2020 20:17:21

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on so many Australians.

If you or anyone you know needs help:

• Lifeline on 13 11 14
• Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858
• Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36

Lives have been lost, jobs and businesses have been wiped out, and individuals have had to come to grips with being isolated from family and friends.

No industry has felt the strain more than pubs, clubs and casinos. From March 23, they had to close their doors at short notice, throwing the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of Australians into turmoil.

But for some Australians these closures have proved a blessing rather than a curse.

The Alliance for Gambling Reform says more than $1 billion has been saved in poker machine losses in the past five weeks.

ABC Investigations has been in contact with hundreds of people affected by problem gambling, and we asked whether coronavirus shutdowns have changed gambling habits.

Many of them have described the past five weeks as one of the most peaceful periods they can remember.

Here are three of their stories.

The mineworker

Corey* is a mineworker from Queensland. He knows too well the pain that a gambling addiction can cause.

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His father lost the family home through betting on the horses when Corey was a small boy.

'All these years later, it still causes fights in my family,' he said.

'Knowing my family history, I became a staunch anti-gambler. I'd never even bet on the horses.'

The 29-year-old avoided the issues his father had. Until July last year.

'My father got diagnosed with a form of dementia and I went into a dark place. I started drinking heavily and began to play the pokies.'

The Queenslander had been working hard as a fly-in fly-out mine worker and was saving for a home.

Within two months of taking up the pokies his $25,000 deposit was gone.

'I'd wake up at 10:00am, go to a pub or club, and play the pokies, sometimes until 3:00am.'

He would repeat this pattern during his week off in the city, before flying back to a mining camp to work for two weeks.

After another two months, he sold his prized 4WD for $17,000 to feed his new habit.

Soon that cash windfall was gone. With no money in the bank, and nothing else to sell, he started borrowing money.

By the time the lockdown started Corey owed the banks and same-day lenders close to $20,000.

'COVID-19 has been a blessing for me, with pubs, clubs and casinos closed, I've been completely unable to play the pokies at all,' he said.

He's now putting aside 80 per cent of his income to pay off his loans and feels that he has his gambling under control.

'Since the lockdown started, I created an online gambling account and put $100 into it. I lost that $100 straight away, so I haven't put any money back into it since,' Corey said.

'I'm hoping this is the end of my eight-month gambling habit. It's cost me so much, from my health and happiness, to pushing away friends for the sake of gambling — it's really impacted me on every level and set me way back financially.'

The mother

For Sonia, the 58-year-old mother of a pokies addict, the lockdown has been one of the best months of her life.

'It has been a blessing for me and my son because he's suddenly not being tricked, deceived and robbed by the poker machines,' she said.

Sonia's son John* has twice attempted suicide in relation to his gambling addiction.

'We are both experiencing a peace we haven't experienced for over a decade. I'm able to live each day without the constant fear that my son will try to take his life again.'

'He told me that God's answered his prayers with the lockdown, that a heavy weight has been lifted off him and that he feels like he has been set free.'

The 28-year-old has MS and is on disability pension. Sonia says at around 2:00am on a Saturday he goes to a local Sydney pub or club knowing his pension will be in his bank account by then.

'By the time the sun comes up he's lucky if there's anything left in his account,' Sonia said.

Once John blows all his money, Sonia has to make the most awful choice. Does she give him more money to help him get through the week knowing he will probably put it through the pokies?

Invariably she gives in.

'People ask why I give him money. It's because I'm scared that he might commit a crime to pay for his habit,' she said.

'You have to realise the habit overrules normal thinking. Do you know how many people are in jail because of a pokie addiction? I'm scared he could end up in jail.'

Sonia says she's on the verge of losing her house and has borrowed tens of thousands of dollars from the banks and from family to pay for her son's habit.

She says John has self-excluded from hundreds of venues, but they continue to let him in to gamble away his pension and his mother's money.

Sonia says she has used the lockdown to pay back money she's borrowed.

'In the past five weeks I haven't had to give him money. But it's so much more than the money, it's the emotional rollercoaster as well.'

Australia has the highest gambling losses per head of population in the world. Sonia hopes the lockdown will lead to a rethink on poker machine policy.

Over the past 25 years, she has held a number of senior positions in the manufacturing industry, and says that the absence of poker machines is not just good for the families of addicts, but for small business as well.

'Over $6.5 billion is lost to poker machines each year in NSW alone. If this money was spent in small business the economy would thrive and many jobs would be generated.'

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Please fill out the ABC Investigations gambling story tips form, or text message the team via the WhatsApp or Signal mobile apps on 0418 347 462.

The small businessman

Andrew runs a small business in rural Queensland.

Much of his work is done on the road, and when he drives into a new town, he finds it difficult not to pass the local pub.

'If I'm driving for work, something in me gets triggered and I will drop into the pub and start putting money through the pokies,' he said.

The businessman finds himself being drawn to something he hates.

'I can't stand the pokies. But I started playing them 20 years ago when I was struggling with anxiety.'

Andrew suffered trauma as a child that led to anxiety in adulthood. In his late teens he started drinking, then playing the pokies, as he tried to deal with his past experiences.

'It terrifies me to think how much I have lost. Outside my food, my rent and my phone bills, I was probably putting around 60 per cent of my income through the machines.'

He says in the past month he's felt more at ease than any other time in the past two decades.

'This isolation has been an absolute godsend. Prior to the pandemic I was still visiting pokie rooms two or three times a week, but in the past five weeks I haven't even thought about pokie machines,' Andrew said.

'Prior to this, my anxiety levels were up and down constantly. Now, I'm so much more relaxed and less anxious.

'Today I had a beer and put $20 on the horses on my phone and I was content with that. Before I could pour $3,000 into the pokies in a couple of hours.'

Andrew is worried about what might happen when the pubs and clubs reopen.

'I do have concerns about what happens down the track, but my hope is that my time away from the pokies has given me strength and gets me to see what life is like without them.'

*Not their real names

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Topics:gambling, clubs-and-associations, hospitality, covid-19, australia, sydney-2000, qld

First posted April 26, 2020 04:47:10

The history of pokies is not quite as long as other forms of gambling, such as blackjack, roulette, or horse racing. Poker machines were invented less than 120 years ago. Some might be surprised to learn the pokies have been around since the 19th century, but gaming machines have a much shorter history in Australia.

This pokies timeline will provide a short historical overview of reel-game mechanical devices, then cover in greater detail the gaming machines of Australia. To provide a better understanding of the current legal landscape of Australian gambling, various gaming laws which pertain to Aussie pokie machines will be discussed along the way. These will be brief, to avoid too technical of a discussion. This chronological history of pokies will start with the mechanical era, discuss the electronic gaming machine, cover the advent of online pokies, and even look ahead to the near-future of Australian poker machines.

The story begins in the United States, birthplace of the poker machine.

Charles Fey Invents Poker Machines

Charles Fey was a German immigrant to the United States, who eventually settled in San Francisco. Charles Fey owned a machine shop, but he was also an inventor. In the late-1880’s and early 1890’s, Charles Fey began designing gambling machines. In 1895, he succeeded in building the Liberty Bell machine, which used three mechanical reels to randomize symbols.

Within a few years, Charles Fey had marketed these machines to bars and saloons across the San Francisco Bay area. The locals called these “slot machines”, and they became popular. At first, gamblers could play for money, but it was the Age of Reform in the USA, so local and state laws soon banned betting for cash. The Liberty Bell machines instead paid out in fruits, gums, and other small items. In time, many of the reel symbols depicted types of fruit, a practice which came down through the decades. This is why they called pokies “fruit machines” in the United Kingdom.

Las Vegas Slot Machines

Eventually, poker machines were banned in California, and then throughout the United States. It wasn’t until 1931 that a U.S. state–Nevada–legalized casino gambling. Nevada was a vast desert with a sparse population, and it was the Depression Era. The state’s leaders faced a severe shortage of revenue, so they allowed gambling in the hopes of collecting tax revenues to keep the state solvent. In the 1920’s, Los Angeles had begun to grow into the metropolis it now is, while the movie industry became well-placed in Hollywood. Las Vegas became a viable place to live in the 1930’s, because of the construction of the nearby Hoover Dam, so the city was built to draw the rich and powerful of nearby Los Angeles.

After World War II, America faced a time of unparalleled prosperity. Americans coming back from the war wanted to build families and make a fortune, but they also wanted new and glamorous forms of leisure. With the creation of the interstate highway system and jet engines in aviation, the US was easier to get around than ever before. In the 1950’s, Las Vegas became a gambling destination not only for wealthy Americans, but also for middle class tourists and vacationers.

The poker machine appealed to these gamblers, because it offered a game which required no skill or mastery to play. The Fifties and Sixties were a time when mechanical marvels seized people’s imaginations, so the so-called slot machines became a popular attraction at the Las Vegas casinos–though not as popular as they are today.

Australian Pub Pokies Pictures

Pokies Come to Australia

It was in this era that pokie machines came to Australia. New South Wales became the first Australian state to legalize poker machines in 1956. This form of gambling became a favourite in NSW pubs and clubs, then spread fairly quickly throughout much of the rest of Oz. Often, poker machines could be found in social clubs, sports clubs, and RSL clubs. The first game produced in Australia was Clubman Pokies, designed by Joe Haywood.

Aristocrat Leisure Limited

To provide the devices which would be used in New South Wales, in 1953 Len Ainsworth founded Aristocrat Leisure Limited. Aristocrat gaming machines were the first to appear in the gaming venues of Australia. Over much of the 60 years since the company was formed, Aristocrat remained the largest producer of pokies on the continent. These days, Aristocrat Leisure Limited is second only to the American company, IGT, in placing poker machines in Australian casinos, clubs, and pubs. Its classic machine is Queen of the Nile, though the company has numerous other iconic titles in their game line.

The Ainsworth family continues to hold significant stock in the company to this day, though Len Ainsworth founded a second gaming company in 1995: Ainsworth Game Technology Ltd. Both corporations remain headquartered in an around Sydney, New South Wales. A year after Ainsworth left his original company, 1996, Aristocrat’s IPO was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. By that time, a revolution had taken place in the gaming machine industry.

Australian Casino Gambling

Casino gambling was banned in Australia until 1973. All machine gambling took place in clubs and pubs, making that form of pokies gambling the archetypal way to gamble in Australia. In fact, New South Wales is sometimes referred to as Clubland, because about one-half of all Australian clubs are found in that state.

“Superclubs” like St George Leagues Club began to appear in 1963. The NSW people began to complain that the club owners were forgetting their community spirit in pursuing crass profits from gaming, a belief which might have led to the opening of land-based casinos in Oz. In 1973, the Wrest Point Casino opened in Tasmania. This gaming house would be far outstripped by the casino developments of the 1990’s, which were armed with the next evolution in poker machine design: video pokies.

International Game Technology

International Game Technology, usually referred to as “IGT”, had been around since the 1950’s. The American gaming machine company remains headquartered in San Francisco, birthplace of the pokie. IGT remained a small-time player for several decades, but it began to make inroads with its video poker machines in the early 1980’s. In 1981, the company went public. In the 1980’s, IGT Australia was established to enter the market Down Under.

Video Pokies

In these years, IGT began to debut technological advances in the gaming market. The most important of these was to make poker machines electronic instead of mechanical. This was a profound change in the market. When gaming machines were mechanical, they were limited in the size of their jackpots by the limitations of the reels. When a reel had to conform to size standards, only 3 reels were viable and those reels could not contain too many symbols. A fixed jackpot of $1,000 was considered a big prize.

After the inception of the computerized chip, a random number generator could produce results and the video reels could be increased to accommodate much larger payouts. The family 5-reel electronic slot machine came into being. With these, high fixed jackpots were available. Within a few years, progressive jackpot pokies would be created.

Progressive Pokies

IGT used progressive or accumulated jackpot poker machines for popular games like Wheel of Fortune, then later the wide-area networked progressive jackpot poker machines like Megabucks. Once people could win lottery-style payouts on the poker machines, these became the most popular and profitable games in the casino. These days, pokies account for between 60% and 70% of casino revenues.

Australian Pub Pokies Videos

The invention of the electronic gaming machine brought with it a wave of innovations beyond the accumulated jackpot. Game developers eventually introduced modern multiple paylines, free spin features, bonus games, and the gamble feature. By the 1990’s, the entire industry was changing. Meanwhile, Australia’s government was beginning to wake up to the potential advantages and potential dangers of the gambling industry.

Ainsworth Game Technology

“Pokie King” Len Ainsworth formed Ainsworth Game Technology in 1995. Along with IGT and Aristocrat, Ainsworth forms the big three poker machine companies in Australia. Ainsworth Game Technology is known for its multi-tiered progressive jackpots, found on Double Shot, Triple Shot and Quad Shot machines.

The 1990’s – Golden Age of Pokies

The 1990’s became an era when many of the casino and club gaming companies gained massive boosts in revenues. Laws were still lax and the market was unsaturated, so casinos began dotting the landscape and both domestic and international gaming companies began operations. Poker machine manufacturers like Konami from Japan, Sydney-based WMS Gaming, and Aruze Gaming from Japan all joined the action. Konami Australia is known for games like Money in the Bank and Incan Pyramid.

WMS, which was founded in 1943, has legendary games like Jungle Wild, Li’l Red, and Zeus Pokies. Another growing player in the market is the collaboration between Star Games, Bally Gaming, and Shufflemaster. These companies may not be well known in Australia, but the three big American companies which have merged with Bally’s and is trying to build a presence in Australia.

The 1990’s proved to be a golden age for pokies players. This was when the progressive jackpots became a popular feature on games, while the pubs and clubs still had unfettered play on the local gaming machines.

Western Australia Pokies

The Burswood Island Casino was established by Perth businessman Dallas Berger in 1985. After 20 years in operation, Kerry Packer bought the complex in 2004. His son, James Packer, renamed the casino Crown Perth in 2010. Due to laws in Western Australia, though, poker machines are not allowed in the complex. This illustrates why Aussie gamblers need to learn about the local, state, and federal laws in their area, because Australia is a patchwork of gaming laws.

Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex

In 1994, a gaming operation open on the north bank of the Yarra River in Melbourne. This was the casino which would go on to become the Crown Melbourne. It would be 1997 before the Crown Melbourne complex on the Southbank Promenade would be opened. The new casino, which became the largest casino in the Southern Hemisphere, was owned by the media mogul, Kerry Packer. His company, Crown Limited Group, would go on to become the leading land-based gaming company in Australia. That makes Crown Ltd the leading poker machine company in the land.

The Star Sydney Casino & Hotel

In 1995, the Sydney Harbour Casino opened in New South Wales. The gambling establishment would be renamed the Star City Casino, and then the Star Sydney Casino and Hotel. These days, it is the second largest house of gaming on the continent. For the past two decades, the Star Sydney has been the sole licensed casino in New South Wales. In 2013, Crown Group won the right to build a new billion-dollar complex in Sydney Harbour–a structure that will become the Crown Sydney. These days, TABCORP and Echo Entertainment own the Star Sydney Casino.

Interactive Gambling Act of 2001

The Interactive Gambling Act (2001) was passed on June 20, 2001 by the Australian Commonwealth Parliament. The new law, usually called the IGA, made it illegal for online gambling operators to offer real-money interactive betting to Australian residents on the Internet. These same operators are not allowed to advertise real money gambling services, including ads for online casino games like pokies. Residents who access these services online do not commit an offence. Also, gaming companies based in Australia can legally offer their services to punters outside Australia.

The only exception to this latter code is a ban on those from “designated countries”. To be designated, a foreign government can make a request of the Australian government, but that country must have corresponding legislation which bans the same games.

Contrary to popular opinion, domestic and foreign online gambling operators are banned from accepting Aussie gamblers. The government has never prosecuted international gaming companies for accepting Australian players, so these companies continue to accept real money play from Australians. Complaints are filed with the Australian Broadcasting Authority (http://www.acma.gov.au/).

Australian Pub Pokies Images

Online Pokies in the 21st Century

Australian Pub Pokies For Sale

In the 21st century, online pokies are a bigger part of the total gambling industry than ever before. Dozens, if not hundreds, of online casinos compete for customers. Despite the IGA, foreign companies from the UK and elsewhere try to sign up players and have them play for real money. Australians are willing to oblige at websites like Spin Palace, Ruby Fortune, Mummy’s Gold, and Cabaret Club. These companies use software from Microgaming, the most popular and widespread online gaming software in the world.

Players can use either a personal computer or laptop notebook to log onto these sites, register an account, fund the account with a deposit, and be gambling on pokies for real money within a few minutes. While IGT and Aristocrat design and market online pokies, it is companies like Microgaming which dominate the market.

Mobile Poker Machines – The Future of Pokies

Mobile pokies are now available to Australians, too. These are electronic games available on mobile devices like Android smartphones, Blackberry phones, and Windows Mobile phones. With an Apple iOS app, players can enjoy mobile pokies on their iPhone, iPad tablet computer, or iPod Touch. These downloadable applications are found websites called “mobile casinos”, which are much like the traditional online casino, except they contain casino apps instead of casino software.

These two types of interactive gaming tend to be found on two different sites, because of the complicated legal situations in some countries around the globe. In Australia, mobile pokies are treated much like online pokies. Looking ahead to the future, it is expected that mobile gaming will one day account for more revenues than online gaming on a desktop computer or laptop notebook. This demographic change might occur as soon as the period between 2015 and 2020.