GAMBLERS put more cash through pokies in the City of Maribyrnong in the last financial year, despite a reduction in the number of gaming machines.

Braybrook’s Ashley Hotel posted a $2.2 million-dollar increase in net expenditure over the 2007-08 financial year, even though the venue shed 30 of its machines earlier that year.

The trend was replicated on a smaller scale at The Palms, Yarraville Club and Club Leeds, despite all three holding fewer machines than in 2007.

A total of 164 poker machines – or 24 per cent – were taken out of venues around the City of Maribyrnong at the end of 2007 after State Government legislation capped the number of poker machines in certain areas.

The municipality currently has 511 poker machines in operation.

The move was initially met with a promising drop in expenditure, with an 8.8 per cent fall in net expenditure in December 2007 compared to the previous year and similar figures in January 2008.

But research commissioned by the State Government, reported in a Star report last year, predicted the drop in the number of machines would make little difference to takings.

The study anticipated a return to pre-reduction levels in a matter of months.

Maribyrnong resident Meg Stevens said the figures were proof machine capping had done nothing to reduce problem gambling in the area.

“In the Edgewater case at VCGR (Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation), Tattersalls argued that because they will remove 11 machines from Maribyrnong and put 70 machines in a new venue next to a supermarket that this will have the net effect of reducing gambling in Maribyrnong,” Ms Stevens said.

“Just how stupid do they think we are? Sadly the VCGR believed them.”

Poker machine expenditure in the City of Maribyrnong was $1148 per adult for the 2006-07 financial year, with gamblers pouring $58.1 million into the municipality’s poker machines.