‘A billion-dollar empire of harm’: how gambling took over Australia
https://theconversation.com/a-billion-dollar-empire-of-harm-how-gambling-took-over-australia-272343
‘A billion-dollar empire of harm’: how gambling took over Australia
https://theconversation.com/a-billion-dollar-empire-of-harm-how-gambling-took-over-australia-272343
20 Comments
One of the good things about WA is the total absence of pokies outside of the Casino.
State and federal governments got hooked on the income. There’s a lot of money flowed to non-profit/community projects in Queensland from the Jupiters Community Benefit Fund and from the pokies. Money which otherwise would have to be funded from consolidated revenue, or some other “community” fund, or not at all.
So there’s been lots of community benefits from gambling, as well as the downsides.
The question to ask is – is it worth it? Are we OK with the horrible, destructive downsides of pokies and sports betting, as long as the various non-profits get their share? Local footy clubs, local environment groups, that sort of thing. There’s a shitload of money in the various programs funded by taxes on gambling.
Yeah but you’re not a MAN unless you gamble half your weekly wage away.
Don’t be a pussy and gamble “responsibly”
The real elephant in the room is the national real estate obsession and the constant bombardment of real estate ads and real estate news/media stories.
A tax on people bad at math. Brain rot for the elderly.
When I was a young bloke we’d play golf every Saturday and then have a few beers and a feed in the clubhouse. There was maybe 4 of these things over in the far corner. Fast forward when I was married and had a couple of kids and was working a 2nd job at a “Workers” club, they had over 150 machines in a small NSW town. It was eye opening to see how addicted some people were to playing them.
Remove pokies from all suburban pubs. Only casinos should be allowed to operate them.
While we are at it, no gambling ads. No public sponsorship. Treat it like cigarettes.
Destroying our society.
yeah it’s fucked
Guys guys…now that they’ve made it a bit harder for teens to get on facebook and consenting adults to look at nudie pictures… they’re definitely going to maybe consider looking at this.
Its disgusting
If you understand probability then it is obvious that the expected return on games of chance is negative. In the short term there might be a profit, but play long enough. For games of skill there is some chance of ending up ahead, but they are set up so that the average return over all participants is negative. If someone wins at the horses then there is someone else wondering how they will pay their rent. The betting agency will always win in the long term. They will actually guarantee it by excluding people who win too often.
I stopped playing the pokies over ten years ago and deleted my sports betting account this year. I’ve lost too much money over the years. Never again!!
Social Media Ban, Proposed in September 2024, legislation introduced on 21 November 2024, public submissions allowed for 24 hours on the same day. Committee given 24 hours to look at 15,000 submissions, before ignoring them. Bill eventually passed on 29 November 2024, after the government voted to remove time to discuss it in parliament, so they could get it done before the end of the year.
Gambling Harm/Advertising Ban, Inquiry into problem gambling announced on 15 September 2022, 13 public hearings held from 23 November 2022-05 April 2023. Bipartisan report released in June 2023, featuring 31 recommendations. No recommendations taken on board, no changes made. Only gambling harm policy introduced being a ban on credit cards being taken for payment. Something that wasn’t recommended, because it was not seen as a meaningful way to reduce gambling harm.
Apparently forcing through the social media ban was super important, but banning gambling advertisements is something that requires at least another 2 and a half years of waiting.
Both Labor and liberal love the “hospitality” from gambling companies – does anyone really expect it to change?
Hell we even had Shorten shilling for betting companies before he left parliament because we apparently should give two fucks about footballers not getting a mil a year
Seriously WTF. It’s pure evil and it needs to fuck off.
My father was a gambler. It was a rough childhood and all the way through my teenage years. I get teary-eyed thinking about it.
Kids wakes up Sunday morning and want to watch Premier League highlights…..with a bonus bet365 ad before every video 👎🏻
I dropped almost 2k before realising I could be headed for disaster, and I don’t even have a propensity to gamble. So I can’t imagine how destructive it can be for people who are addicted to things easily.
Gambling sites also use crypto as payment method which makes it easy to disassociate the $ amount you’re actually spending.
And nobody wants to say it out aloud, they own the major political parties.
As an Aussie who left the country 6 years ago, the last time I was back was genuinely scary. My friends decided to take me to the “cas” on Saturday night, and to my surprise it was like an amusement park filled with young people gambling their night away.
I was in amazement. So many of them looked like zombies. You got nothing better to do on a Saturday night than lose your week’s pay? Apparently this is normal! Gambling is a tumour on the country. When you don’t live in that world, it’s so much more shocking to see how in your face gambling is in swathes of Australia.