Labor's plan to to allow poker machines at the casino has provoked a vigorous anti-government campaign from Canberra clubs, which have a stranglehold on machines in the ACT.

The campaign has been publicly supported by the opposition and called on close to 200,000 members to punish Labor at the polls for stripping revenue from clubs.

To stifle the opposition, Labor announced a 50 per cent tax break on pokie revenue for some clubs earlier this week and a review of plans to cap machine numbers.

Bryan Rogers, director of the Centre for Gambling Research at the ANU, said the debate paid almost no attention to the life-destroying impact of pokies or efforts to assist those with addiction.

"You can get caught up in arguments about where the machines should go but the reality is many of the people using these machines have life-destroying problems and are not getting anywhere near the support they need," he said.

"Where you put a machine is not going to be a big factor in terms of the number of people affected or how you treat them."

Dr Rogers said many Canberrans are shocked and surprised to learn how much revenue was raised by poker machines, with the majority coming from problem gambling.

Canberrans put more than $167 million through poker machines in 2014-15 with clubs paying close to $34 million in tax.

ANU researcher Francis Markham said the political influence of poker machines in Canberra was unique given the Labor party's affiliation with the Canberra Labor Club group.

ACT Gambling and Racing Commission figures released last year show the group runs the most profitable poker machines in Canberra, taking an average $51,380 profit from each machine, compared with the average overall of $33,740.

Mr Markham said the Labor party's links to pokies "created a direct conflict of interest".

A recent ANU study found 28 per cent of poker machine losses in Canberra came from the 2 per cent of the population that identified as problem gamblers.

Dr Rogers said a slight reduction in gambling harms in Canberra was not the result of government policy or the provision of services, but a change in community behaviours.

On Wednesday, the ACT Greens called on gaming insiders to leak information about the targeting of problem gamblers to politicians, who would use parliamentary privilege to make the practices public.

"We know that here in the ACT and around the country political parties profit from pokie machines," Brindabella candidate Michael Mazengarb said. "It's the people addicted to gambling that they hurt."

Opposition leader Jeremy Hanson dismissed the call and criticised the party for accepting a $50,000 donation from the CFMEU, which owns poker machines across Canberra.

Earlier this week, Mr Hanson told a Clubs ACT protest that Labor's concessions were a "pretty cheap and nasty political exercise" shortly before an election.

Gaming Minister Mick Gentleman denied the tax break was politically motivated.

"Certainly not, this is not about politics, this is about assisting those community clubs that we've been a supporter of for many years, and we see the struggles that they've had," he said.