Here’s a staggering statistic – $12BILLION was lost playing poker machines (“pokies”) in Australia’s clubs and pubs last year – that’s 2/3 of Australia’s gambling expediture (SMH, Charles Livingston, Pokies: a problem we can fix, 23/10/09). $12BILLION….that’s about $300MILLION per day! Far out! It doesn’t sound so bad if you say $500 for every woman, man and child in the country. But it IS bad.
A 2006 report on the prevalence of problem gambling in NSW showed that pokies account for 31% of all gambling activities (lottery products 56%) but that 95% of problem gamblers are more likely to use pokies. Therefore, “it is pokies that pose the most risk in terms of problem gambling”. One of the common myths surrounding pokies is that the longer you play the better your chances of winning….ba bunnnn…..the chances of winning stay the same no matter how long you have been playing. Pokies are designed to be as seductive as possible and to make as much money as possible so that clubs, pubs and other customers will buy them. Current Australian laws “allow” pokies to consume $1200 an hour (Livingston, 2009). This does not sound right to me. In NSW you can load up a pokie with $10,000 worth of credit but are “limited” to $10 “bets” per spin. But considering you can spin up to 20 times per minute….that’s a lot of daiquiris!
Most governments are not interested in reducing the numbers of pokies around the place, in fact, a recent article in the Sunday Herald reported on clubs asking for more (apparently they are “struggling”). Typically, problem gamblers are only helped once they fall off the wagon, thus protecting a revenue stream whilst creating the illusion of helping those in need. It suggests that people are the problem not the machines…utter rubbish…I have seen and experienced problem gambling and it is not a pretty sight. Problem gambling is a psychological condition perpetuated by the continuing presence of easily accessible and numerous pokies around the place. Governments try anything to “solve” the issues around pokies except get rid of them.
Of course the lobby groups (aka Clubs NSW) will have you believe the world will collapse if they don’t have pokies. Yes, they do “invest” in sporting facilities, food and entertainment (for some that’s a marginal assertion), employ 45,000 people and pay more than $1 billion each year in tax. Hence, the conundrum. Are governments really going to give up a revenue stream to protect its citizens? They should, but they won’t unless they can fill the hole. And Clubs will “threaten” massive job losses in order to secure their pokies fever.
The solution….design a new business model that makes the existing model obsolete! A business model that relies on pokie revenue cannot be sustainable and shouldn’t be allowed to continue.