Wyndham residents spent more than $10,000 an hour on the city’s poker machines last financial year.
Latest figures from the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation reveal that Wyndham recorded the state’s seventh-highest expenditure on electronic gaming machines between July 2013 and June this year.
More than $90 million was spent on the city’s 891 machines.
Brimbank recorded the highest ‘spend’, with gamblers parting with $138.5 million.
In Wyndham, poker machine players spent the most money at the Werribee Plaza Tavern ($17.1 million), followed by the Commercial Taverner ($11.9 million).
HealthWest prevention and advocacy co-ordinator James Dunne believes population growth is behind Wyndham’s increase in pokies expenditure.
“The increase in expenditure is most likely because there are more people in Wyndham to visit gambling venues,” he said.
While the amount of money spent on poker machines in Wyndham increased from $87.8 million in 2012-13, Mr Dunne said spending per person was on the decline.
In 2011-12, adults in Wyndham spent an average of $685 a year on pokies, falling to $626 last financial year.
“This decrease in spending per person is positive, but because these figures are across the whole Wyndham adult population, we don’t know if the spending has increased or decreased among particular population groups, or in particular parts of Wyndham,” Mr Dunne said.
“We know that older people, people who are newly arrived in Australia and young men can sometimes be more vulnerable to harm from pokies.”
Mr Dunne said work needed to be done to identify which groups were most vulnerable to problem gambling to reduce Wyndham’s pokies expenditure.
“Working with these groups to identify other recreation activities would be a good place to start. Offering alternative activities will create less reliance on pokies as the only form of entertainment or social connection.”
