The Greens politician is not being a wowser. He is simply asking the ACT government to implement two key recommendations from the Productivity Commission's 2010 report into gambling.

The first of these is that any poker machines at the casino have a $1 bet limit per spin. This would cap potential losses to about $120 an hour, not the $1500 an hour punters can potentially drop under the $10 per spin bet limit at local clubs.

The second is that mandatory pre-commitment be imposed and enforced at the casino.

Pre-commitment means when a gambler enters the venue they indicate how much they are prepared to lose. Once this limit is reached they have to stop.

Given the casino's operators profess to be so concerned about problem gamblers and the well-documented social harms arising from unfettered access to high stakes poker machines they are proposing to offer an "in-house support centre", complete with chaplains, one would expect them to welcome Mr Rattenbury's intervention with open arms.

What he is suggesting may well have the effect of making the support centre largely redundant and eliminate the need to spend the money it would have cost to establish and operate.

Mr Rattenbury, like Nick Xenophon in South Australia, is right to urge strong action on an issue which often flies under the radar, thanks in no small part to the efforts of a well-funded and aggressive gambling lobby.

That the issue is politically sensitive was brought home to the ACT government in early 2015 after then Gaming Minister, Joy Burch, unilaterally decreed $50 note acceptors be approved for poker machines across the ACT.

That decision was described by then Clubs ACT chief executive Jeff House as a "very welcome Xmas present".

Public servants said the action, which was subsequently overturned, had potentially diluted the ACT's harm minimisation framework protecting problem gamblers.

It highlighted the dependence of ACT Labor on donations from the labour clubs and union-controlled venues.

According to the 2010 Productivity Commission report 95,000 of the 600,000 Australians who play the pokies once a week are problem gamblers.

Although they only make up 17 per cent of regular pokies players, this group accounts for 40 per cent of the $12 billion a year fed into the machines across Australia.

Individual problem gamblers spend, on average, $21,000 a year and, according to a 2008 survey, gambling was the most common motivation for fraud.

The report noted the actions of a single problem gambler impacted on five to 10 other people, causing family breakdowns and financial hardship. It noted up to 500,000 Australians, including family members, friends and employers, may be being affected.

These are just some of the reasons Mr Rattenbury needs to stick to his guns.

If he is successful then the logical next question has to be "why can't these measures be extended to all pokies venues across the ACT?"