Newcastle local government area has one of the biggest pokies gambling habits in NSW, losing an estimated $1200 a year per adult on the gaming machines.
Monash University associate professor Charles Livingstone provided the Newcastle Herald with data which shows the extent of poker machine losses across the Hunter after Premier Dominic Perrottet announced on Monday that a re-elected Coalition government would remove cash pokies from the state by the end of 2028.
The move is designed to end money laundering by criminals and tax evaders in pubs and clubs and curb problem gambling.
The Herald reported on Monday that Hunter gamblers lost $251 million in the six months to June 2022 on poker machines.
Dr Livingstone's analysis shows pubs and clubs in Newcastle, which has a people-drawing central business district, made $138 million from pokies in 2021, the 10th highest profit in NSW.
Newcastle's $1018 loss per adult resident was the 15th highest amount blown on pokies in the state.
Dr Livingstone, the head of the Gambling and Social Determinants Unit at Monash's School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, said the average poker machine user in NSW pubs and clubs lost $4525 in 2021.
He estimated COVID lockdowns in 2021 had reduced gambling losses across NSW by about 17 per cent that year, meaning Newcastle's annual per-adult losses now were likely more than $1200.
Elsewhere in the Hunter, pokie losses in 2021 were $639 per adult in Lake Macquarie, $877 in Muswellbrook, $777 in Port Stephens, $615 in Cessnock, $637 in Upper Hunter and $624 across the Maitland, Dungog and Singleton council areas.
Dr Livingstone's figures show the Hunter lost $397 million in the COVID-affected 2021 calendar year.
He said LGAs with business districts, such as Newcastle, tended to record higher pokies losses because workers commuting into the city gambled at lunchtime and after work.
"It's a good way of concealing your habit from your friends and family. You're much more anonymous in a CBD area," he said.
He said money laundering in clubs and pubs was highest in western Sydney, but other areas were not immune.
"They're notorious for drug crime, but down along the Riverina and in some country towns across NSW like Broken Hill and bits of Newcastle you've got quite high levels, which would suggest there's a fair bit of money laundering going on.
"It's not just guys selling drugs; it's also tradies cleaning money that they're getting cash in hand.
"They've got to explain that money, so a quick stop at the pokies on the way home and bingo it's done."
The Riverina council area of Murray River had the highest per-adult pokie losses of $5884 in 2021.
The government's proposed reforms include mandatory self-imposed spending limits which cannot be changed for seven days, player identity linked to a single bank account, no credit card top-ups, machine load-up limits of $500 and self-exclusion from pokies.
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