Poker machine reform was at the top of the agenda when the Prime Minister met key Independent MP Andrew Wilkie in Hobart on Sunday.
Mr Wilkie said he would support a $1 cap, but the government is pushing for mandatory pre-commitment registration for gamblers, which has sparked a strong backlash.
The registration means pokie players would have to pre-set a gambling limit on how much they want to spend before they play.
"The certainty is if they don't pull of this reform, I will withdraw my support," said Mr Wilkie.
"I'll do that regretably but I'm a man of my word."
Mr Wilkie also says he's in a better position to judge the progress of poker machine reform than anti-gambling senator Nick Xenophon.
Senator Xenophon said today that the government's setting up Mr Wilkie's reform agenda for failure, calling it political bastardry.
"And I believe the government already knows this," Senator Xenophon wrote for News Limited on Sunday.
"In fact I suspect that for base, self-interested reasons the government is secretly planning to run poker machine reform into
the ground, betraying the trust of Andrew Wilkie and the hundreds of thousands of Australians whose lives have been destroyed by this
dangerous and deadly product."
"As acts of political bastardry go, this has to be near the top of the list.
"Prime Minister Gillard knows she does not have the numbers to get her scheme through the lower house.
"So why is the prime minister pretending she can deliver pre-commitment and why is she refusing to back the simple, effective reform she can actually get through?"
Independent Rob Oakeshott has been non-committal about supporting any reform until he sees the legislation in draft form.
Tony Windsor is understood to have told Ms Gillard he'll consider supporting a $1 cap but not mandatory pre-commitment.
Greens leader Bob Brown said all roads in the debate now led to the $1 bet limit.
"Nick Xenophon's call for this option to be backed in today's press, and Andrew Wilkie's willingness to revert back to $1 bet limits, and the fact that it is a much cheaper option for clubs to implement points to this being the point of agreement for everybody who wants to take real action on the damage to society of compulsive gambling," Senator Brown said.
Greens Senator Richard Di Natale relaunched the option last year with a great deal of support from experts in the field.
Senator Brown urged the coalition, which supports voluntary pre-commitment, to support the $1 bet option.
