More than 98 per cent of residents and tourists in Alice Springs are opposed to more pokies in the outback town, a new survey has revealed.
It comes as a nine-month moratorium on the approval of new gaming machine licences for Alice Springs' pubs and clubs is due to expire next month.
The survey, undertaken by campaign group No New Pokies Mparntwe, asked more than 1,000 people in Alice Springs about their views towards pokies amid a push by hospitality giant Iris Capital to add 60 additional machines to its various premises across town.
"The overwhelming response is that our town doesn't need any more pokies," said Emma Buckley Lennox, a member of the campaign group.
"There's a lot of problems in our town, and the solution is not more poker machines.
"We want a safe and thriving town where everyone feels welcome and can be part of the community, and pokies are not doing anything towards that goal."
The survey also found that, of the 211 tourists that participated, just one said they had used pokies while visiting the town.
"People don't come to Central Australia or the NT to use poker machines," Ms Buckley Lennox said.
"They come here because it's a beautiful place to visit.
"They come here because there's incredible Aboriginal culture, art and history and because the natural environment is unlike anywhere else on this continent."
No New Pokies Mparntwe has called on the NT government to lower the pokies cap to stop any new licences being approved in the Northern Territory.
Iris Capital, which became the largest private employer in Alice Springs since purchasing Lasseters Casino in 2021 and five hotels and taverns the following year, declined to comment.
The Sydney-based company has earmarked more than $70 million for developments at the casino and its other Alice Springs assets, pending final approval from the government's development consent authority.
Led by billionaire Sam Arnaout, Iris Capital has already added at least 115 additional machines to Lasseters Casino, which operates under a separate, longstanding agreement with the government and is not subject to a cap.
In response to community pushback, including more than 700 submissions to the Director of Gaming Machines, the NT government ordered the nine-month moratorium on new pokies last September while it moved "to strengthen the application process".
Government ' listening' to community
In the 2021–22 financial year, gamblers lost more than $12 million to pokies at pubs and clubs in Alice Springs.
In a statement, Gaming Minister Chansey Paech said the NT government took gambling-related harm "very seriously" and would soon announce changes to the pokies application process.
"The Territory Labor government … is absolutely listening to community sentiment in Alice Springs, which is why we introduced a nine-month moratorium to consider the applications for gaming machines," he said.
"Our government has a number of legislative and regulatory measures to minimise gambling-related harm, which we continue to modernise to ensure we are in line with best-practice and community expectations."
Mr Paech, who is also the state's Attorney-General, said there was an "ongoing commitment" to lowering the pokies cap, which was removed by the Country Liberal Party government in 2015.
"We reinstated the cap when we returned to government in 2016 and have since lowered it twice," he said.
"Each year, we commission research so we can better understand the social impacts on gambling.
"And we also provide funding to support interventions such as the promotion of community awareness and education about problem gambling, including counselling, rehabilitation and support services for gamblers and their families."
In announcing the moratorium last year, Mr Paech said it would allow the government to take the time to "make the application process more robust and in line with community expectations".
Hospitality chief says 'silence' on other gambling
Hospitality NT chief executive Alex Bruce said, compared to other states and territories, the NT already had some of the strictest gambling regulations.
"Community groups are well within their rights to have their say and have their surveys," he said.
"We would point to the low venue caps [for pokies], the overall low limit that is in place in the Northern Territory, and the strong code of practice.
"The reality is, you can probably get a survey to suggest that no-one wants to pay tax and that everything should be free, and about 98 per cent of people would agree."
Mr Bruce said licensed gambling venues were often the target of scrutiny, while there was "silence" on other unregulated forms of gambling, such as illegal card houses.
"We are a regulated, legal, highly taxed industry, and we want to be responsible," he said.
"We're here for the long haul. We want to invest in the communities, and we are part of the community."
He said lifting the moratorium would be important for providing businesses with more certainty around the future of pokies regulations.
