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October 15, 2003
Australians love to gamble. It gives them a lot of pleasure. Gambling is good fun. There is nothing wrong with it, since it is just a form of entertainment. That is the spin from the gambling industry.
Spooner
I think so to.
Tattersalls is a conscious predator upon a small proportion of vulnerable Victorians who suffer gambling problems.
That was the judgement of the ABC's Four Corners programme by Jonathon Holmes last Monday night.
What is suprising, given the connection between pokies, addiction and crime, is how little the state governments in Victoria and SA are actually doing to miminize the harm being done by pokie gambling. Gambling addiction is not taken all that seriously. These Government's are raking in hundreds of million dollars a year from pokies, but they do little to prevent the predatory behaviour of the gambling industry. Nor are they doing much to effectively wind back gambling addiction in their states and the social and economic havoc caused by the recent explosion of poker machines in the hotels and entertainment industry.
What we have is state fostered gambling. Our state governments have shifted from role of governments from being watchdogs of gambling to becoming its leading promoters. They too are fixated by the dollar flashes of the machines and they go all glazy eyed.
Update
This is good news. The Salvation Army has rejected a $5 million donation from pokies giant Tattersall's. It said no to the offer because it didn't want money made from the misery of pokies. Good on them. Their reasoning was solid:
"...we would have been seen to be in partnership with a group that causes so much misery."How would we be able to face the people that we were seeking to help that were victims of Tatts? For that reason, it was rejected."
They've earned a lot in the credibility stakes with that judgement.
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Gary, leaving aside debates on the morality of gambling, would you prefer that it was once again given back to the original proprieters? That is: Organised Crime?
As bad as tattersalls are, they don't shoot witnesses and they don't cut off your digits if you max out your credit card.
Gambling prohibition is just as effective as the prohibition of Alcohol was, and the prohibition of narcotics still is, at creating an environment where organised crime and it's associated violent culture can flourish.