Anglicare Tasmania’s Social Action and Research Centre manager Meg Webb said the documentary will shed light on how poker machines are geared to lose, and designed for addiction. 

“The frequency of the [pokies] near misses and the randomness of the actual wins never actually have a pattern, but people are designed to want to find a pattern,” she said. 

“The fact that it triggers the same pleasure centres in the brain that are triggered by other addictive products,” she said. 

She said Tasmanians were concerned about the presence of poker machines and their location in the community. 

The event also offers an opportunity to discuss submissions to the government’s parliamentary inquiry into pokies reform.

The documentary will screen this week in Launceston and Devonport, and has aired in Glenorchy.