For those battling addiction, rock bottoms can come in different forms.

Jordyn Bateman, 28, hit his while collecting empty cans for 10 cents a pop so he could go and play one of the 86,000 pokie machines scattered around New South Wales.

After 10 years of losing on the pokies, as the gambling machines are known in Australia, the painter from the Central Coast was broke.

Whatever wages came into Bateman's pocket were going straight back out.

"I'd lose a lot," he said.

"And then I'd have to borrow money from friends and family," he added, describing to 9news.com.au the demoralising cycle familiar to all problem gamblers.

"I was even crushing cans. You know, how you get 10 cents from the cans?

"It got to a stage where I was doing that.

"Then I sort of realised, 'What am I doing?'"

Bateman was 18 the first time he played the machines, just as he was able to go into pubs and legally buy a beer.

Inside, it didn't take long for a bank of pokies to capture his attention.

He dropped in some cash, and so it began. Slowly at first.

"It's pretty easy to just go and do," is how he remembered it.

He had some wins early on.

"It wasn't a lot. But it definitely hooked me in."

Last year The Washington Post reflected on the omnipresence of pokies across Australia, and especially in NSW.

The ubiquity of pokies has become normal in Australia; not so for international visitors.

The paper reported Australia has less than half-a-per cent of the world's population but 20 per cent of its pokies – and 80 per cent of those located outside casinos.

There are around 86,000 electronic gaming machines (EGMs) in NSW, so it's little surprise Bateman found himself reeled in.

According to a 2017 government report looking at the risks of EGMs, one of the key findings was that the machines have computers which run "sophisticated techniques, designed to maximise spending and time on device per user".

The report said the EGMs very successfully employ complex "game maths" and "psychological principals" to maximise bet sizes and usage.

"These characteristics have the effect of increasing the addictive potential of EGMs," it warned.

Bateman began to spend hours playing.

Where he was once gambling on trips to the pub with friends, he was soon playing on his own.

It had become a secret.

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