Warrandyte resident Karen Throssell, 63, is lobbying GetUp! members to keep the heat on the pokies industry after the Greens agreed to back the Gillard Government's watered down national pokie machine reform.

"I want to urge you to continue your campaign against poker machines despite the legislation announced today," she wrote in an open letter to GetUp!

Ms Throssell's husband Robin, a trade union official, took his own life 16 years ago after losing tens of thousands of dollars on pokies machines. It was the third time the father-of-two had hit rock bottom.

"I believe that poker machines stole him from us," said Ms Throssell. "He left a letter saying the he couldn't take it any more and he cursed the day he discovered gambling."

Ms Throssell, who said her husband was "sucked in" by a "pernicious and manipulative form of gambling", echoed Independent Senator Nick Xenophon's attack of the federal government's new gambling reform as "piss-weak".

The long delayed laws aimed at curbing poker machine addiction are likely to be passed by the end of the year after the Government garnered support for legislation introduced into parliament this week.

The new laws require all pokies machines to have pre-commitment technology by the end of 2016. The voluntary pre-commitment lets players set a limit for how much they are willing to lose. A $250-a-day withdrawal limit will also be imposed at ATMs at pokies venues from May next year.

But Ms Throssell said the laws failed gamblers and their families.

"Asking a gambling addict to voluntarily limit themselves assumes they have a rational state of mind," she said. "But the whole nature of addiction is that you're not rational."

Ms Throssell, who is lobbying for a $1 cap on bets, said serious reform would save lives. "I'm sure the changes we are requesting … would have made a huge difference to Robin," she said. "I don't think there's enough consciousness for a gambler to commit to a pre-commitment.

"Compulsive gamblers don't do it for the money - they do it for the adrenalin. So with a cap there is still the adrenalin, but also some sort of reality check as well as the possibility of some money to take home to feed the family."

The first time Ms Throssell learned of her husband's gambling addiction was in a letter he left for her on the mantelpiece in 1997.

"He said he owed $25,000," she said. "I knew we had money problems but I never expected that. He confessed and asked for help and we paid off the debt. He was fine for a while and then it happened again. When it happened a third time he left, as far as I was concerned to sort himself out. But he never did."