Victoria’s Premier, Jacinta Allan, recently announced that pokies areas within pubs and clubs will shut down from 4 am to 10 am each day. The idea is to allow gamblers to stop and consider the decisions they are making.

This will bring Victoria in line with other jurisdictions, including NSW and the Northern Territory, which have the same shutdown times.

While enforced daily closures of pokies venues are welcome, these timings don’t follow the evidence. As the saying goes, 'nothing good happens after midnight' – and 4 am is too late to be cutting people off.

At the Australian Gambling Research Centre, we surveyed more than 1,000 people who gamble on the pokies at least fortnightly.

22% of the gamblers who experienced gambling harms said their last pokies session was between midnight and 4 am. This compares to 8% of those not in that category who gambled during this time.

The fact that people experiencing gambling harms are almost three times more likely to be sitting at a machine between midnight and 4 am is telling.

If you’re experiencing gambling harms, the activity is impacting your life in significant ways. You could be gambling more than you can afford, or feeling guilt, stress and shame about your gambling, among other impacts.

So while people who experience fewer negative impacts of their gambling are, for the most part, heading home before midnight, many for whom gambling is taking a toll on their lives are staying on.

Earlier in the evening it’s a different story. Whether experiencing harms or not, regular pokies gamblers were roughly just as likely to be on the pokies. 54% of gamblers experiencing harms said their last pokies session was between 6 pm and 9 pm, compared to 50% of other pokies gamblers. For 9 pm to midnight it was 40% and 35% respectively.

The shutdowns that were recently announced in Victoria are designed to protect the community from gambling harms – and we know how important that is.

Regular pokies gamblers from our study who are experiencing harms – which was 82% of all survey respondents – spend about $500 a month on the pokies. More than one in five reported their last gambling session resulted in them experiencing financial problems.

Victoria’s shutdown will help. 14% of pokies gamblers experiencing harms had their last gambling session between 4 am and 7 am and an additional 14% between 7 and 10 am – so, for many people, it will make a difference.

But the evidence highlights there is a missed opportunity to be stronger in our bid to reduce gambling harms. A midnight closing time could have greater impact. It would give pokies gamblers time to disengage from the machine – take a break, perhaps have a walk or a sleep.

Importantly, as our study shows, it would curtail gambling by people who can’t afford to spend money on the pokies at all.