LTE and article in Border Mail (Australia)
I totally disagree with Barry Prater’s comment in Saturday’s Border Mail ($571m JACKPOT). The primary reason for people spending more than they can afford in the pokies is not complex at all. It is a direct consequence of every person’s very human ability to learn coupled with a very clever marketing campaign that is purposely designed to lead people to believe that playing the pokies is a safe, good thing to do, while at the same time, minimising the effect playing the pokies on a regular basis will have one anyone who does so.
Those who profit from pokies addiction (and sadly many problem gambling treatment service providers here and overseas fall in that category) still espouse the view that pokies addiction only occurs in people who have poor coping skills, depression, difficulty forming or maintaining relationships or “an addictive personality”. Current research from around the world does not support this view.
Mark Dickerson (formerly Professor of Tattersall’s chair of Psychology at the University of Western Sydney) spent over 25 years trying to find a single personality trait (or even a set of traits) common to all people who had addictions. Unable to find any evidence for the existence of an addictive personality, he concluded that there is no such thing as an addictive personality.
Research conducted by the Flinders Medical Centre in South Australia showed that prior to coming into contact with (and gambling on) poker machines, 75% of those who become hooked on the machines have no prior psychological disturbance, no aberrant coping skills, good relationships with friends and family and no prior difficulty controlling their gambling on any other form of gambling they indulge in.
Research from Nova Scotia showed that the single greatest risk factor for becoming a problem gambler is playing an electronic gambling machine. The second greatest risk factor for becoming a problem gambler is having access to one.
All people are hard wired to respond to the world around them. It doesn’t take a Rhodes scholar to work out that when presented with products and environments that reinforce certain behaviours and not others, people will respond in predictable (one could say, foreseeable) ways. IGT (one of the worlds largest manufacturers of gambling machines) spends around $12 million each year on gambling machine research and development. Most of that goes into developing a product that “will deter gamblers from going home while they still had money in their wallets”. That they do not give any thought to the harms that ensue when people “stay longer and play longer” does not negate their duty to avoid harming the people who use their product exactly as they hope they will.
At Duty of Care’s recent International Pokies Impact Conference, some 20 researchers, clinicians and politicians from around the world spoke of the decimating impact the computerisation of gambling machines, their psychologically entrapping design and marketing as a mere form of entertainment to an uniformed and unaware public, has had on the communities they are introduced to. Evidence came to light that the legalisation and wide spread distribution of gambling machines (no matter where in the world it occurs) is inevitably followed by a tenfold increase in the numbers of problem gamblers and where they have been banned, the number of problem gamblers reduces to pre-computerised gambling machine introductions levels.
John Stansfield (CEO of the worlds largest gambling help service, the problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand) spoke to an appalled audience about the "refusal" of some help service managers refusing to allow their staff to attend the pokies impact conference or to speak publicly out about the impact of poker machine design has on their clients for fear of losing their government and gambling industry funding.
Overwhelmingly, conference delegates and speakers agreed that
1. Poker machine design and promotion are the major reason for gambling related harm, not the personalities or irresponsibility of the people who gamble on them,
2. That problem gamblers are the victims of an industry devoid of the usual consumer protections offered to consumers of other products, and
3. That funding of treatment programs needs to be separated from government and industry influence to avoid the appalling situation where some problem gambling counsellors are required to refrain from speaking publicly about the harms gambling machines are causing, for fear of having their funding cut.
In the final session of the conference, a group of problem gambling counsellors from Victoria made the commitment to begin speaking publicly about what they know and to push for funding of gambler help services to be separated from the undue influence of the government and gambling industry. It is to be hoped that NSW gambling help counsellors will begin doing likewise (though only one delegate was from NSW).
I can only hope that Barry Prater and others who help problem gamblers take time to read the papers presented at the conference (available on CD from Duty of Care by mid-October) and read the recent article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph (How pokie kings make millions, Andrew Chesterton, Daily Telegraph, 10.09.06) describing the tricks the gaming machine industry uses to get people to play the pokies for longer than they intend (and thus to spend more money than they intend).
$571m JACKPOT
Border’s clubs, pubs strike it rich on pokies
BY BRAD WORRALL
POKER machine punters pumped $571 million into machines in Albury last year, 28 per cent more than the previous year.
It was the highest percentage increase in NSW.
The figure is turnover, not money lost, but depending on whether you accept the word of the clubs or anti-gambling lobby, it’s a $46 million or $75 million windfall for pubs and clubs.
But the heads of the Border’s two leading clubs say Albury is simply riding an economic boom driven by a $524 million freeway project and its workforce.
The financial year figures were released yesterday by anti-gambling lobby Duty of Care and are the result of a freedom of information request on the NSW Department of Gaming and Racing.
Yesterday, Duty of Care’s Lana O’Shanassy said the increases made a mockery of clubs and pubs pleading poor on the back of smoking restrictions and pokie taxes.
“Albury has the largest percentage increase in turnover in NSW,” Ms O’Shanassy said.
“It is up 28 per cent from $447 million to $571 million.
“The take from that turnover is about 13 per cent.”
Club bosses disagree saying the figure is between 8 and 9 per cent.
Ms O’Shanassy also said there were now fewer venues in Albury but more machines.
“That result has been achieved as venues reduced from 27 to 25 but machines increased from 1354 to 1365,” she said.
“What is happening is more people are being addicted to the gaming machines.
“We are calling for a 50 per cent reduction in pokies to reduce the convenience factor of having a machine in pubs and clubs on every corner.”
St David’s Uniting Care gambling counsellor Barry Prater was not surprised by the figures.
“But at the same time it is no good belting the clubs over the head all the time, the machines aren’t jumping out in front of people, the reasons are far more complex than that,” he said.
SS and A club chief executive Andrew Terry and the Commercial Club general manager Jeff Duck say Albury is booming.
“In the past year, we have seen membership grow from 23,000 to 30,000, our food and beverage businesses are booming and, yes, gaming is up,” Mr Terry said.
“And gaming is growing throughout NSW — Treasury estimates that growth at about 3 per cent a year and we have done a bit better than that.”
Mr Duck was at pains to point out that turnover was not money lost.
“Albury-Wodonga is enjoying high growth and the freeway is part of that,” he said.
