Pensioners could be hit as cards track pokie wins

The Age has reported that hundreds of thousands of elderly Australians playing poker machines could see their pensions cut after wins as smartcards are introduced to track gambling habits.

Centrelink has already used data tracked from pensioners using swipe cards at major casinos to count wins and losses as earnings, and demanded repayment.

But Centrelink has refused to tell welfare legal services whether other regular gambling wins need to be declared as income, despite the Tax Office not deeming them to be. Until now, it was impossible to track pokie wins.

Smartcards that identify each user on a national poker machine network will be introduced from 2012, recording how much has been won and lost, under a deal struck by the Federal Government with the independent MP, Andrew Wilkie.

National Welfare Rights Network director, Maree O’Halloran, said “We are very concerned that a major problem for pensioners that arose at casinos, where their gambling losses were treated by Centrelink as evidence of earnings, may start to arise in a whole lot of communities now where people gamble on poker machines and they have the new card”.

More than a dozen cases of pensioners whose gambling was tracked through swipe cards at casinos and were assessed to owe Centrelink money are awaiting a ruling in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The Welfare Rights Network has written to South Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, and Mr Wilkie, saying a biometric card to limit gambling losses could reduce high levels of problem gambling, but also had the potential for large numbers of pensioners to be caught by unclear rules on the reporting of income, partly because pensions are means-tested.

“The Welfare Rights Centre supports methods to stop excessive gambling and we know gambling can destroy lives,” said Ms O’Halloran.

“We are alerting the Government to this issue so they can protect, and Centrelink can tell people clearly what income do they have to declare if they gamble.”

Austrac provides data gathered from banks and casinos to Centrelink. Gambling services must monitor and record customer identities and transactions, including the reporting of big payouts to Austrac, under anti-money laundering laws.

An Austrac spokeswoman said pubs and clubs with poker machines were not complying with these rules, and it was already in discussions with the sector on how to improve intelligence gathering.

Ms O’Halloran said the use of the swipe card data on gambling as evidence of pensioner income was misleading.

“People sometimes win $100, and lose $400. They can do that within one day. Centrelink would see that as you had $500 worth of income,” she said.

Centrelink has told the centre it assessed gambling wins depending on each customer’s individual circumstances.