Bundaberg's pokie turnover slides

Bundy's Pokie turnover slides.

BUNDABERG punters have spent less money on the pokies last month than they did in January despite having the same number of machines, new figures show.

The region threw $3,087,949 into the slots in January, but only gambled $2,832,443 away in February – more than $255,000 less.

Although the decrease looks hopeful for the region, community advocates say it isn't a permanent statistic.

“It's a statistic that is probably consistent with history of poker machines in this region,” community advocate Mary Walsh said.

Mrs Walsh said the lull was possibly a “one off” statistic and just a reflection of the current climate.

“There are a lot of issues out there at the moment impacting people whether they are gamblers or not,” she said.

“It'd be nice to think it was a permanent statistic, but based on history I don't think that's the case.”

She said from a social perspective, the future carbon tax, earthquakes, and tsunamis were having an effect on everyone, and may be attributed to the drop in pokies expenditure.

“People are reacting not just to local disasters, but to the wider area of issues,” she said.

“They're apprehensive about what's going on in Queensland, Australia and the broader world.”

Mrs Walsh said current weather patterns also had the ability to influence statistics.

“We had a lot of rain in February,” she said.

“People tend not to go out all that much and prefer to wait until weather is conducive for social outings.”

January was the month when flood relief payments were issued to the region but Institute of Health and Social Science Research spokesman Matthew Rockloff said he didn't believe this caused January's figures.

“Presumably, most payments went by and large for purposes of covering real losses and may not have affected gambling that much,” Dr Rockloff said.

He said it was hard to get an explanation for a decline or rise in figures by only looking at month to month figures.