The ACT Government is introducing new laws to help reduce the toll pokies machines take on vulnerable gamblers, while Queensland seems to be heading the opposite way.

Governments around the country are in the awkward position of enjoying massive windfalls from the profits of gambling, while video poker machines drive addicts to destitution one spin at a time.

But Canberra’s pubs and clubs will now be allowed to trade poker machine licenses, so that smaller venues can sell their machines to larger organisations, to reduce the accessibility of the expensive habit.

Gaming Minister Joy Burch said a percentage of poker machine licences would be surrendered with each transaction, driving down the number of machines.

Among the biggest changes ever undertaken in the sector, new licenses will be capped at a ratio of 15 machines to every 1,000 adults.

Meanwhile, the Queensland Government is going the other way and deregulating the gambling industry.

The Newman Government has brought in changes to increase the number of poker machines in a single club, and increased the value of notes that can be used.

The new rules have been reviewed by a team behind Dr Charles Livingstone, from the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University.

Far from fighting problem gambling, the review found Queensland’s new laws actually encourage issues of organised crime and money laundering.

“If you reduce the amount of regulation, if you grant people perpetual licences, and if you reduce the capacity of the regulator to actually keep track of things, and all of the reforms do these things, then (there is) the likelihood that organised crime or other forces who want to launder money have a much greater opportunity to do so,” Dr Livingstone said in an interview for ABC radio.

“I'm sure the authorities will say this is preposterous but gambling is, continues to be, and always will be a prime source of money laundering and when you liberalise the regulation around this, the likelihood of that occurring increases. There is no question of that.”