Speaking of pokies, it will be interesting to see if the pokies reforms initiated by Xenophon and Wilkie get cancelled. They'll probably need the senate to sign off on that one but I did hear before the election that Clubs Australia was lobbying to Coalition very hard to remove the pre-committment technology (among other things).
I've met lots of people who've lost everything because of pokies and it's usually a trigger like a marriage break-up or ill health that starts it... you'd be surprised how ordinary problem gamblers are, so you're better to just not touch them under any circumstances. There's a lot of research to suggest that a large proportion (depending on which research you read, at least 40%) of pokies revenues comes from people classified as having 'problem gambling' so there's a lot of vested interests in keeping that flow of money going. State governments also have a pronounced conflict of interest because there are still enormous rivers of cash coming in from pokies and they are determined to underplay the problem; that's why the Commonwealth intervention is so important.
Personally I find pokies the most boring thing on earth but I still think we have a duty of care to stop people from jumping off the cliff rather than just keep an ambulance at the bottom.