"...cash cows designed to strip money away..."

Mother who lost daughter to pokies begs Julia Gillard not to give up on gambling reform by: Politicial Reporter Daniel Wills
From: The Advertiser

A MOTHER who lost a daughter to poker machines has begged the Prime Minister not to abandon reform.

Christina Matthews, mother of Katherine Natt, says now is the time to tackle the social scourge and Ms Gillard must stand up to powerful pokie barons.

Coroner Mark Johns ruled in 2010 Ms Natt's 2006 death, which left behind two children, was "a direct result of her inability to cope" with a gambling addiction.

Those findings have been sent to Ms Gillard.

Ms Matthews said yesterday her daughter's pokie habit turned her from a "responsible person with money" to "a person who saw taking her life as the only way out" in just 18 months.

Ms Matthews has joined anti-pokie South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon's Stop the Loss campaign of community organisations challenging the "misinformation" campaign of pubs and clubs.

She said governments and machine owners should admit pokies were "cash cows designed to strip money away from the people that need it most".

Katherine Natt overdosed on Panadol and Nurofen the same day as losing $4000 in a 29-minutes pokie binge. Ms Matthews warned the same could easily happen to others.

"Everyone has the potential to become a gambling addict, it just takes something within our lives to push us that way," she said.

"I am convinced that they are programmed with a subliminal message of some kind in them and if you've got a weakness, that message will just latch on and there is nothing you can do.

"These people need someone else to step in and help them because they are not in a position to be able to help themselves."