The Greens and the Liberals formed an unlikely political alliance, voting together to support a call for an independent inquiry into the future of the ACT club industry and for ACT Labor to cut ties with the Labor Club.
Poker machines will also banned between 2am and 10am after Labor and the Greens agreed on some harm reduction measures.
Labor also agreed with the Greens to establish an independent inquiry to advise government on the future of the clubs sector.
But the party of Chief Minister Andrew Barr will brush off the Greens' and the Liberals' call for it to donate $6.1 million to an anti-gambling harm group and abandon its links to the Labor Club.
The Liberals and the Greens on Tuesday voted together to back an inquiry to consider "practical" options to help the territory's clubs sector to reduce its reliance on poker machine gambling revenue.
The inquiry ought to consider the "adoption of evidence based, evaluated harm minimisation initiatives that are scale appropriate in terms of technology options and financial implications", the Liberals and the Greens agreed.
The Labor and Greens leaders - Mr Barr and Gaming Minister Shane Rattenbury - issued a joint statement after the vote to highlight the gambling harm reduction measures the two parties had agreed to.
"Both parties have agreed to the establishment of an independent inquiry to assist in advising Government on the steps necessary to develop and implement a club industry revenue, activity and worker transition plan," the joint Labor-Greens statement said.
Clubs ACT executive director Craig Shannon welcomed the joint statement.
"The agreement by all three major parties to the establishment of an independent inquiry on the ACT Club industry and our social and economic role in the ACT is fundamentally important to achieve a sustainable industry and to allow an evidence based approach to policy going forward," Mr Shannon said.
Mr Shannon said the ACT needed a viable clubs industry and the sector looked forward to consultation on the proposed reduction of trading hours.
Gaming Minister Shane Rattenbury said the two governing parties had not reached agreement on significant gambling harm reforms.
Mr Rattenbury had put forward a proposal for a central monitoring system, which he argued would enable the effective introduction of loss limits across the ACT's gaming venues.
Labor has resisted the proposal on the grounds it would be expensive, does not effectively introduce harm reduction measures and could be circumvented by gamblers going over the border to keep losing gambling in Queanbeyan.
Mr Rattenbury on Tuesday said: "I am still pleased that we can make some progress. Turning off poker machines between 2am and 10am - the hours when the most pokies harm occurs - is a recognised harm reduction measure that will make a difference."
The Greens' Andrew Braddock had put forward the motion that prompted the debate, describing Labor's involvement in the issue as a "tale of power, control and consequences".
"Here in the ACT, the Labor Party doesn't simply get lobbied by the gambling industry. They are themselves a part of it. They've done some work to mask the connections over the years, but the fact remains that - including under electoral law - the Canberra Labor Club and ACT Labor party are associated entities, intrinsically linked," Mr Braddock told the Legislative Assembly.
Mr Rattenbury told the Assembly Labor had shown they were unable to approach gambling policy in a reasonable and evidence-based way.
"The proposals I have presented are universally lauded by credible harm-reduction advocates as an effective way to protect people from gambling harm from poker machines," he said.
"It is what the Canberra Gambling Reform Alliance is calling for. it is what the national Alliance for Gambling Reform is calling for. it is what the ANU Centre for Gambling Research endorses as the way to reduce harm.
"And it is what the Justice and Community Safety Directorate researched and developed as an effective proposal. It's important to emphasise that the Labor Party's reaction to this proposal has been very odd. Recalcitrant, obstructionist, dismissive, undermining. There has been a lot of wasted time and effort."
Mr Barr described Mr Braddock's motion as a "provocative, defamatory approach" of the kind that doesn't yield an outcome. Mr Barr also said Mr Braddock's earlier proposed amendments to legislation that were designed to force Labor to cut its links with the Labor Club as "unconstitutional".
"There is much common ground, possibly even with [opposition gaming spokesman Mark] Parton and the Liberals on some elements of this. I think the community expects that where we can find agreement, we move forward," Mr Barr said.
"But the community also accepts that there are legitimate reasons for disagreement and the costs associated in particular courses of action need to be considered."
Mr Barr last week criticised the central monitoring system policy put forward by Mr Rattenbury for being too expensive and easy to circumvent by going across the border to keep gambling in Queanbeyan.
"We'll try and find some consensus on harm minimisation measures, but the challenge with CMS is it's expensive. The operator is just another gaming industry behemoth. The NSW one is run by Tabcorp," he said.
Mr Rattenbury has previously said the system would cost less than 5 per cent of poker machine profits over the next 20 years. On Tuesday, he told the Assembly he had developed a pokes harm reduction proposal as the minister with access to the latest research, expertise and information.
"That proposal was best-practice, costed, and expert-endorsed and it was the one that would most effectively reduce gambling harm from pokies. I've talked about this before, but to reiterate, the proposal would introduce: mandatory account based gambling for pokies; mandatory loss limits and time limits applying to anyone who wants to use ACT pokies; a central monitoring system that links pokies to make the harm reduction measures effective and territory-wide," he said.
